


another thing coming undone

by saucerfulofsins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Time, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Praise Kink, Sexting, Slow Burn, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:54:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22054375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saucerfulofsins/pseuds/saucerfulofsins
Summary: Space is—well. Mostly just that. Between fights, the stretches of downtime stretch on, and Keith's Altean isn't good enough to make use of their internet.His Altean iscertainlynot good enough to find porn. Cue Shiro to the rescue.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 100
Kudos: 392





	another thing coming undone

**Author's Note:**

> First things first... This fic has been some 6 months in the working by now. I don't think I've felt this great about something I have written in a very long time (4 years) and it was such a fun ride to create this. I really do hope everyone who reads this will enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it! 
> 
> Gratuitous thanks to [Abbey](https://twitter.com/sepiacigarettes), [Mei](https://twitter.com/belovedsheith) and [Gee](https://twitter.com/Tasty_and_Huge) for putting up with me as I wrote this, and for cheering me on mid-write :)
> 
> Title is from the National's song "[Runaway](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R8Hyf3kMf0)." 
> 
> Ah, and happy new year to everyone who reads this around the time of posting (or in the many years to come)!

With a loud _ping_ , an incoming message demands Keith’s attention. 

> [01:12] _T. Shirogane:_ Can’t sleep?
> 
> [01:14] _T. Shirogane:_ I can see you’re online, are you okay?
> 
> [01:14] _K. Kogane:_ yeah just bored

In truth, Keith is more than a little bored.

He’s been browsing the Castle’s databases for something fun to watch—reading is out of the question since he doesn’t understand the ancient Altean script. He knows that if he wants to sleep, he could put on a movie or shut off the datapad and maybe deal with his half-hard dick, but they’re on a long stretch between fights and he’s so overwhelmingly _bored_ that it’s difficult to snap from the mindless scrolling he’s been stuck in for the past few hours.

He watches some more of the video he found, strange creatures with tall legs and barrel-round chests that mill around what looks like a purple swamp. The footage is hideously, incredibly monotonous. A perfect representation of his life currently, really.

Keith had expected an intergalactic space war to be a little more exciting than this.

> [01:16] _T. Shirogane:_ Ah. Yeah, me too. What are you up to?
> 
> [01:17] _K. Kogane:_ watching videos of … animals I think. theyre in a purple swamp and do nothing at all
> 
> [01:17] _T. Shirogane:_ I have seen that one, I think!
> 
> [01:17] _K. Kogane_ : i fucking miss the internet, alteans suck at everything humans do right
> 
> [01:17] _K. Kogane_ : youtube, netflix
> 
> [01:17] _K. Kogane_ : there are no games shiro n o g a m e s
> 
> [01:18] _T. Shirogane_ : Maybe we just don’t know enough Ancient Altean to search the database for what we want?
> 
> [01:18] _T. Shirogane_ : You do sound a little pent up though, haha ;)
> 
> [01:19] _K. Kogane_ : im not pent up im just super tired of boring altean crap that looks like coran flimed it and this boring space war thats mostly drills and exercise, this isnt what i left the garrison for
> 
> [01:20] _K. Kogane_ : wait what do you mean pent up?

Keith fumbles, almost dropping the datapad once he notices Shiro’s innuendo. _Logically_ , he tells himself he can’t be certain as to what Shiro is implying. There’s probably a simple explanation that makes perfect sense.

But three months without porn mean that he’s on edge, that pleasure now tugs sharply at his insides while his cheeks grow hot with a visible flush. Shiro’s not _wrong_ , per se, but this isn’t the sort of thing they’ve talked about before—not really the sort of thing Keith’s ever talked about with _anybody_.

 _This is nice_ , he thinks, more awake now as he shifts to his back and waits for Shiro’s next message. Not erotic, exactly, but it’s exciting in a way many things aboard the Castle aren’t.

> [01:20] _T. Shirogane_ : Well. I guess that what I’m saying is that I do also miss some of the content you didn’t mention?
> 
> [01:20] _K. Kogane_ : you mean the ones lance keeps talking about not finding hmm
> 
> [01:21] _K. Kogane_ : mr takashi shirogane i didnt know you were this filthy
> 
> [01:21] _K. Kogane_ : this dirty, this lewd
> 
> [01:21] _T. Shirogane_ : You know watching porn is entirely normal, right?
> 
> [01:21] _K. Kogane_ : this naughty this uhhh bawdy is a word right?
> 
> [01:22] _K. Kogane_ : but yeah i know i cant believe the alteans dont have any? like please at this point anything would be fine rn Im just
> 
> [01:22] _T. Shirogane_ : I don’t know about that. There are some things I like better than other things, I suppose.
> 
> [01:22] _K. Kogane_ : like what

Keith has never been more grateful for the confines of his very own, very _private_ room, and the fact that Shiro isn’t able to see him currently—instead, the conversation almost seems fake. _Almost_.

He’s certain he’s bright red by now. Something about the conversation seems improper, although he reminds himself that as Paladins, they are far more equal than they were back on Earth. Nearly two years have done a lot to change them and their friendship is different now.

Not touching his dick is becoming increasingly difficult now it’s hard enough to tent the fabric of his underwear, his body miles ahead of the conversation just by its inference.

> [01:23] _K. Kogane_ : you dont have to say if you dont want to
> 
> [01:23] _T. Shirogane_ : I was just thinking, don’t worry :)
> 
> [01:24] _T. Shirogane_ : Okay so, I like the stuff where the guys show up and kiss each other for a while before moving on. Just some backstory to set the mood, you know?
> 
> [01:24] _K. Kogane_ : only you shiro, you big sap. but im sure you dont just watch for the plot
> 
> [01:24] _T. Shirogane_ : No, but I do like it when they take it slow
> 
> [01:25] _K. Kogane_ : shiro please
> 
> [01:25] _T. Shirogane_ : Haha! Well. There was a video where the guys came back home from a date and they were clearly into each other. Not just acting like they’re into each other?
> 
> [01:26] _T. Shirogane_ : It wasn’t very kinky. One of them gave the other a blowjob, and that was pretty much it I think in terms of the sex, I just liked the combination of the story and how it was filmed

Shiro’s story isn’t spectacular. Keith’s sure that Shiro not being used to creative writing plays its due part, but after months of stagnancy, his imagination is finally kicking back into gear. Imagining two nondescript but fit guys making out with each other is no problem, fingers brushing together as they smile into each other’s mouths.

His dick twitches again and he slowly slides a hand down his chest and stomach before cupping the front of his boxers.

Keith needs a moment or ten, just so he can catch his breath before he decides on what he wants to say next. What Shiro already talked about is something, and it’s definitely working, but he’s eager for more already—his mouth is dry and his fingers shake when he pulls the pad back up.

> [01:26] _K. Kogane_ : that doesnt sound very exciting
> 
> [01:26] _T. Shirogane_ : I’m not a very good writer, the video itself was better
> 
> [01:26] _T. Shirogane_ : Are you okay with details?
> 
> [01:26] _K. Kogane_ : absolutely
> 
> [01:28] _T. Shirogane_ : They were making out on a couch in their fancy date clothes until they were grinding their hips together. Like the one in the red shirt had his thigh in between the legs of the other guy. They spent some time like that and then red shirt moved down and unbuttoned the slacks of white shirt guy to pull out his dick.
> 
> [01:28] _K. Kogane_ : so he was still clothed?
> 
> [01:28] _T. Shirogane_ : Yeah

Keith takes it slow. Over years of shared spaces, bunk beds or roommates or unlockable doors, he’s grown accustomed to making getting off as efficient as possible. Even now, he sees masturbation as primarily a perfunctory need—something he does to keep his mind sharp and body relaxed. He’ll draw it out if he has the time for it, and he won’t if he doesn’t.

The ellipsis in the bottom of the chat window signal that Shiro is typing more. Keith is close already, precome wetting the fabric of his underwear as he trails his fingers lightly across the underside of his cock, torturously teasing himself. He decides that he doesn’t want to get off until one of the people in the story do, until he has a full picture of what the video must have looked like.

Instead of worrying about how this might change his friendship with Shiro, about essentially coming out in asking for more of what Shiro is telling him, he re-reads the description and wonders what it’d be like to feel a thigh pressed against his dick. How easy it would be to push up into the solid muscle, the way he’s currently pushing up against the palm of his own hand.

It’s enough to moan quietly, another rush of heat washing over his body as he takes a couple of deep breaths.

> [01:28] _T. Shirogane_ : So white white shirt groans and pulls off his tie while red shirt sucks the tip of his dick into his mouth
> 
> [01:28] _T. Shirogane_ : Does that still make sense?
> 
> [01:29] _K. Kogane_ : yes, dont worry
> 
> [01:31] _T. Shirogane_ : So, the head of his dick, and he has his hand curled around the base and his other hand between his own legs because he’s just that into it? White shirt tries to take off his shirt a few times but red shirt won’t let him, he’s slowly taking more and more into his mouth and he has his eyes closed and looks like he’s really enjoying himself
> 
> [01:31] _K. Kogane_ : and then?
> 
> [01:31] _T. Shirogane_ : Wow you’re greedy
> 
> [01:31] _T. Shirogane_ : ;)
> 
> [01:31] _T. Shirogane_ : Are you enjoying yourself?
> 
> [01:31] _K. Kogane_ : is that a question you have to ask if im asking for more

He can’t get closer to admitting that he’s jerking off without spelling it out, but Keith can’t find it in himself to care. He’s too close, too hot, too swept up in the thrill of the conversation and the images it has provoked.

He pictures a dimly lit room and returns to imagine someone else’s dick against his own thigh. The concept is quickly replaced by kneeling on the floor and going down on someone, and Keith thinks about the taste of bitter gusts of precome, his fantasy aided by a wet finger he sucks into his mouth. Then he pictures a guy with just his dick curving up from his fly, desperately pulling at his own dick.

Shiro must be into it too, Keith thinks. Shiro might be as affected as he is in his bed on the other side of the wall, with a hand stuck down his pants as well—or maybe he has them shucked down, naked on his bed and stroking himself between messages.

With another shivering inhale he shoves that idea out of his mind and focuses on the mindless, the nameless again. Someone’s hot mouth around his dick, and it’d feel like the wet fabric that’s currently sticking to his dick but hotter and wetter —

> [01:34] _T. Shirogane_ : And it’s only when white shirt is begging that red shirt pulls away from his dick. And his dick is shining with spit and it’s so pretty and they’re pulling off their clothes in record speed. So then they’re naked and red gets back onto white and takes his time kissing his thighs even though white really wants more and he’s shaking
> 
> [01:35] _T. Shirogane_ : and it doesn’t take long at all before he cums all over his stomach while red has his own hand between his legs
> 
> [01:35] _K. Kogane_ : i wish i couldve seen that

He’s typing with a shaking hand.

He needs his other hand to stroke his dick, pulled from the leg hole of his pants and now dripping precome. He’s hard and _horny_ , whimpering and unable to keep his eyes focused on the screen. The only reason he’s not putting the datapad aside yet is that he still wants to know how it ends before he’ll allow himself to cross the edge—at this point it’s more of a personal battle, a point of pride as well as pleasure.

Shiro’s taking a long time to compose a new message though, the ellipsis appearing and disappearing several times. He tries not to think too much on why, instead reading the final messages again and picturing them the best he can.

He pretends it’s his own dick, slick with spit, pretends that his partner is rubbing it against plush red lips and licking at the tip and —

And Keith can’t hold back, a moan working its way up his throat and he tries to swallow it back but he can’t, not when his hips are pushing up into his hands. He comes harder than he has in months, maybe ever, toes curling and writhing on the sheets as he tries to catch his breath even as pleasure continues to spark through his body, swallowing him and pulling him under with every heartbeat.

He’s caught up in the fantasy, a glimpse of an eternity of pleasure, and it takes a while before he regains his vision, his breath, his ability to think at all.

Cum is seeping into the fabric of his shirt and he groans, sitting up and taking it off before using it to dry his hand. Then he drops the filthy shirt to the floor because he needs the mess out of sight before he can even consider picking up the datapad to see Shiro’s last messages.

> [01:38] _T. Shirogane_ : so white pulls up red and kisses him again and they smile a lot even as white reaches for red’s cock, and he has him settle between his legs with his back against his chest and starts to jerk him off really slowly and whispering in his ear and the audience can’t hear what he’s saying but it must be good because he arches up and h
> 
> [01:38] _T. Shirogane_ : sorry hit send too soon1
> 
> [01:39] _K. Kogane_ : ,;l////
> 
> [01:39] _T. Shirogane_ : !*
> 
> [01:40] _T. Shirogane_ : he clearly wants more so white finally gives in with another kiss to his cheek and then ends up kneeling between reds legs and sucking him off until red cums too and all over whites fa
> 
> [01:41] _T. Shirogane_ : face and reds ends up
> 
> [01:41] _T. Shirogane_ : cleaning his face
> 
> [01:41] _T. Shirogane_ : with his tongue
> 
> [01:42] _K. Kogane_ : was he into that too?
> 
> [01:44] _K. Kogane_ : do you want me to talk abt my fav video or w/e
> 
> [01:45] _K. Kogane_ : ??
> 
> [01:45] _T. Shirogane_ : No, I’m good :) But yes, he was very much into it, I think.
> 
> [01:45] _T. Shirogane_ : It’s getting late though, you should try to grab some sleep.
> 
> [01:46] _K. Kogane_ : alright old timer thank you and good night
> 
> [01:46] _T. Shirogane_ : Sleep well, Keith.

* * *

After waking up, Keith dwells in the bliss of a good night’s sleep for a good minute. The conversation returns to him dreamlike, in bits and pieces, and then like a bomb when it dawns on him that it was real.

Now that he’s not as horny or begging for me, nerves kick in—he’s worried whether he crossed a boundary between them, embarrassed at his own behaviour even as he skims through the messages. He hadn’t noticed that Shiro’s text got broken up, uncharacteristically so—especially without the punctuation. Initially he’d felt like Shiro was dismissing him by mentioning sleep but the longer he stares at the text on screen, the more things dawn on him.

Not for the first time in the last day, blood rushes to his face. Immediately, he pushes down on the heat and the large stone that have lodged themselves firmly in his stomach, swallows away the thickness in his throat. He doesn’t know how to respond; he hasn’t been in this situation before. He’s never openly talked about sex with someone, much less— _this_.

Keith needs several deep breaths before he can bring himself to drop the datapad to his bed. Breakfast is imminent, he knows, however terrifying it may be to face Shiro now that he’s all worked up, and he decides to act normal as possible.

Shiro, clearly, had the same idea.

It must be that or that he doesn’t remember last night. Keith isn’t sure which would be better. Regardless, Shiro looks at him the same as usual, the same amount he usually does, a gentle smile as he extends a bowl of goo to Keith, and the tips of his ears begin to burn as his skin prickles with nervous sweat. He sits down and looks at the space goo, vaguely wonder whether that blue shimmer is new.

“You’re like, extra grumpy today,” Lance complains after he tries to catch Keith’s attention for a third time and fails, throwing a spoon at his head.

Keith snaps out of his Shiro-centric trance and launches it back, hitting him square above his eye. “Maybe because you are extra _loud_.”

Lance looks appalled, covering the sore area with his hand. With some pride, Keith observes that he’s dealt maximum shock with minimum damage. Pidge snorts and Shiro looks up over his pad, derailing his thoughts again because he messaged Keith using that thing last night, he must have been naked—Shiro raises his eyebrows and turns back to his reading, sipping at whatever-the-fuck it is he’s got in his cup.

Another wave of heat crawls up Keith’s back and he again stubbornly ignores is. For once, he is grateful that there is nothing that can sufficiently distract him from the hideously unpleasant mouthfeel or the non-taste of the sludge in his bowl. The discomfort cuts through everything and he slows his eating just so he doesn’t have to deal with anything else, anything more confusing.

The rest of the day passes by without a hitch. Looking at Shiro becomes easier when Keith reminds himself _it’s just Shiro_. He’s not sure where the anxiety came from, except maybe breaking some invisible barrier in their friendship—but it’s fine. They’re still them.

In the artificial evenings, the lights of the Castle dim to a soft glow mimic Earth’s circadian rhythm. Keith barely notices the others leave before he finds himself alone in the lounge with Shiro, lounging on the opposite end of the couch. They’re watching a kind of nature documentary, possibly the same Keith was watching when Shiro messaged last night, and he can’t figure out a way to bring up what happened.

Instead he watches the Woollooses run around. Shiro is fully engrossed in what’s happening on screen, and it’s innocent and entirely in line with how he is as a person. Keith knows he can’t come out and say _hey about last night, that worked really well for me and I think you had fun too so can we do it again_.

Eventually he gives up trying to focus on the documentary. His gaze keeps flitting over to Shiro, still relaxed on the couch, his eyes drawn to the strip of skin where his shirt is riding up, to the dark hair he can see. He shivers, taking a deep breath as he stands up.

“Going to bed?” Shiro asks, finally looking up from the flicker of the screen.

“Yeah,” Keith nods, stretching, hoping to distract Shiro from the wobble of his voice. “It’s been a long day.”

Shiro hums. “Yeah, it has. Sleep well, Keith.”

“Good night, Shiro.”

He can’t tell if Shiro watches him exit the room.

* * *

When Keith opens the messenger app after showering, after falling naked onto his bed, he doesn’t need to scroll up particularly far to reach the good bits.

Maybe he should copy the text to a text editor, or at least some place where he can store what Shiro wrote for future reference. That way, he can delete their names, so he’s not continually confronted with the thought of Shiro or the embarrassing button mash he accidentally sent while he was… distracted.

The story will give him something to work with, at least for a few weeks—maybe months, even. Keith supposes he could ration it, return to the words only when he feels he really needs them. And right now he’s tired, tired and lazy and horny, and it’s all too easy to slide his hand down to his dick and grab it in a loose fist.

He strokes himself slowly, reading the same bits again and again— _he has him settle between his legs with his back against his chest and starts to jerk him off really slowly and whispering in his ear_ —pretends that he knows what’s being whispered. _You look so good, baby,_ and _take it slow_ and _yeah, that’s it, you’re doing great_.

Before long he’s gasping, hips bucking up as he jerks on his dick, squeezing his balls with his other hand. He’s not waiting for another message to come in, doesn’t have to hover on the edge in a supreme moment of self-control he can barely still imagine now. Although he’s got the datapad angled up against the wall so he can hypothetically read the text, he’s too far gone to catch more than words— _come, cleaning, tongue_.

Come splashes across his stomach as he whimpers, slowing his strokes as he teases the final twitches of pleasure from his body. Then he lies in his cot in the dark for long moments, the datapad’s screen turning off from disuse as he stares up at the ceiling. He’s not sure how he feels about using a second-hand fantasy—because this was Shiro’s fantasy, written down in rambling sentences—to get off. And even to him it’s not new, stale after yesterday, certainly without the illicit thrill of Shiro talking and thinking about this on the other side of the screen, of the wall.

Keith takes a couple of deep breaths before reaching under his pillow for tissues to clean up.

* * *

Nobody uses the messenger application much; sharing close quarters eliminates most of its use. They eat together and train together; they play board games. Sometimes Pidge sends him translations of Altean articles in a quest to get him to learn Ancient Altean—without much luck, Keith doesn’t think his brain is wired right for it since the squiggles and slashes remain just that. Lance makes his own memes and Hunk occasionally takes pictures of dishes he’s particularly proud of. And Shiro—well, Shiro uses it to check in on Keith because he knows Keith doesn’t always deal well with face-to-face conversations.

He used to, anyway.

Now, Shiro hasn’t messaged Keith since that eventful night a week and a half ago which is longer than usual. The trepidation he may have felt initially, some secret hope that this could be _something_ , has long been replaced by a growing knot in his stomach, a sickening anxiety that has dictated his last few evenings although Shiro is no different by day.

A green dot signals that Shiro is online, and Keith decides he needs to get the anxiety out of his system, gone, fixed, so that he can move past what he has come to call the porn incident and go back to normal.

> [23:56] _K. Kogane_ : hey
> 
> [23:56] _T. Shirogane_ : Hey :)  
>   
> 

He wants to say more, ask something, but everything he tries seems odd. _How are you_ , _can I ask you something_ , _what are you up to_ , none of it works.

> [23:58] _T. Shirogane_ : Did the proverbial cat get your tongue?
> 
> [23:58] _K. Kogane_ : i swear i had something more to say but idk i forgot
> 
> [23:59] _T. Shirogane_ : Lies! ;)
> 
> [23:59] _T. Shirogane_ : Are you okay?
> 
> [23:59] _K. Kogane_ : yeah i am. just not tired yet which is ok
> 
> [23:59] _K. Kogane_ : how about you

Keith sucks his lip into his mouth, biting down on it, worrying at a piece of skin as he waits for Shiro’s answer in their weirdly stilted conversation. Maybe he’s thinking too much, too hard.

Maybe it is the unbidden anticipation that already sits hot and heavy in his stomach. One previous experience shouldn’t warrant a Pavlovian response, Keith knows, and he wants to ignore it—but more than that he’s eager to chase the thrill again now that his initial fear of talking to Shiro has dissipated into thin air.

> [00:00] _T. Shirogane_ : I’m good too.
> 
> [00:00] _K. Kogane_ : whatre u up to
> 
> [00:00] _T. Shirogane_ : Pidge gave me homework again. She wants me to read this text by tomorrow morning but I haven’t started yet ):
> 
> [00:00] _K. Kogane_ : when did she tell you to read it
> 
> [00:01] _T. Shirogane_ : Last week. Like I said, don’t tell her please.
> 
> [00:01] _K. Kogane_ : dw ive seen what pidge looks like angry, i wouldn’t dare do that to you but even if she’s scary i
> 
> [00:01] _K. Kogane_ : gave up on learning altean, i cant do it
> 
> [00:01] _T. Shirogane_ : Ha. I wish I could, but I feel like I should know at least some for diplomacy’s sake.
> 
> [00:02] _T. Shirogane_ : Besides, it’d be neat to read up on some alien races without needing Pidge or Coran or Allura to help me.
> 
> [00:02] _K. Kogane_ : are you sure thats the only reason youre learning?
> 
> [00:02] _K. Kogane_ : i mean
> 
> [00:03] _K. Kogane_ : if you find sth interesting …

  
The last message is a mistake and Keith knows it the moment he hits _send_.

He’d wanted to be subtle, and this is aeons from that; there is something about the comfort between him and Shiro that makes riding this edge easy, and he wants to read more of the sinful things Shiro fantasises about.

He watches the ellipsis appear and disappear, and he considers telling Shiro he’s going to sleep and ignore what he last said just to get out of the situation. Instead, he stays frozen in place, unable to do anything but wait and see what Shiro has to say and hope he isn’t offended.

> [00:07] _T. Shirogane_ : Hah! Wouldn’t you like to know….. (;
> 
> [00:07] _K. Kogane_ : nvm
> 
> [00:07] _T. Shirogane_ : Really? You don’t want me to share, how did you put it, bawdy Altean videos once I find them?
> 
> [00:09] _K. Kogane_ : i mean you could
> 
> [00:09] _K. Kogane_ : if they exist
> 
> [00:10] _T. Shirogane_ : Yeah.
> 
> [00:11] _T. Shirogane_ : They might, you know. If Alteans have sex the way we do.
> 
> [00:11] _K. Kogane_ : are you saying you think they dont?
> 
> [00:11] _T. Shirogane_ : I don’t know. I don’t know how they’d survive without, honestly…
> 
> [00:11] _K. Kogane_ : HA HA so very funny shiro
> 
> [00:12] _T. Shirogane_ : Yeah I’m pretty proud of myself for that one (:
> 
> [00:12] _T. Shirogane_ : You don’t have to if you don’t want to, tell me and we can cut off this conversation and talk about Altean nature documentaries again but I definitely remember you promising me something the other day

Shiro clearly has the balls Keith lacks.

Relief still floods Keith’s system, the knowledge that Shiro is more than okay with having sexual conversations. There’s an intimacy to it he doesn’t want to attribute just to that—he remembers the other guys at the garrison talking about the girls they thought were hot, the porn they watched when they were alone or showing each other videos. Those were the kinds of friendships Keith didn’t have—didn’t particularly _want_ to have because of the level of pretence that would be required of him.

> [00:12] _K. Kogane_ : im not a very good writer
> 
> [00:12] _T. Shirogane_ : I genuinely don’t care
> 
> [00:12] _T. Shirogane_ : Just don’t talk about women, I guess
> 
> [00:13] _K. Kogane_ : you really dont have to worry about that lmao
> 
> [00:13] _T. Shirogane_ : Alright, I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to assume (:

Keith’s heart is racing, and it’s ridiculous that it should be; with his classmates the anxiety would have made some sense but not with Shiro, of all people.

Maybe, he thinks, maybe it’s that he’s known Shiro for years. He’s had plenty of opportunities to but so far, he has avoided discussing his sexuality with anybody, sprung from the deep-instilled idea that that part of himself is so private no one else ought to know. Moreover, he’s never felt a _need_ to; if nobody was involved with him or his preferences, nobody needed to know—except his internet browser.

And possibly, maybe more than anything, he’s nervous because coming out isn’t the end of it but the start—after all, he’s about to tell Shiro about the specific _kind_ of porn he’s interested. He’s about to share something he never has before, a video he’s jacked off to plenty of times turned into a fantasy he’s turned over and over in his head on the ship, and he knows he’ll have an innate bias towards describing those things that turn him on most.

He gulps down air and starts writing again.

> [00:15] _K. Kogane_ : so its this guy whos lying on his bed in a college dorm or we and hes slowly stroking himself through his underwear with a comics print on it and hes obviously so hard already that its painful to see. like youd want to take it out for him but at the same time its clearly that he finally has some time to himself to do it
> 
> [00:15] _T. Shirogane_ : Wow, that must have felt good
> 
> [00:15] _K. Kogane_ : yeah, it looked like he was so fucking into it
> 
> [00:17] _K. Kogane_ : so he strokes himself and pushes up his hips like he cant help it and he moans quietly before he pulls his dick out form his leg hole and its a good dick too, pretty thick and long and wet at the tip I think
> 
> [00:18] _T. Shirogane_ : holy shit, what next?

The only reason he hasn’t blown his load yet is because he needs both hands to type. His dick is leaking where it lies hard against his stomach, the foreskin slipping back, and his body runs hot to the memory of the video and hotter to Shiro’s increasing loss of proper formatting.

> [00:19] _K. Kogane_ : it doesnt last long because hes so into it, like he barely touches himself for a while just strokes his hand down his chest and moves into it like hes into it more than anything. like hes not just jerking off but he’s actually having really good and horny sex with himself if that makes sense
> 
> [00:20] _T. Shirogane_ : fduckk
> 
> [00:20] _T. Shirogane_ : fuck
> 
> [00:21] _K. Kogane_ : and he keeps his hand around his dick stroking his chest and his nipples and he moans some more and then hes pushing his hips up and coming all over his stomach with his dick twitching hard
> 
> [00:22] _K. Kogane_ : with audible breathing and moaning and hes slowly stroking himself through his orgasm until hes done, with all his cum on his stomach and then he relaxes back onto his bed
> 
> [00:22] _K. Kogane_ : the end

He’s breathing fast and pushing his hips up into empty air by the time he’s done writing.

Space or time to question why Shiro isn’t responding don’t exist—Keith _knows_ Shiro is busy right now. He’s all but gasping, gagging for more, his hand firm around his erection, stroking faster than he might, might want to —

As he thinks of Shiro, on the other side of that flimsy wall —

As he thinks of the video of the guy in bed, jerking off —

As he looks down at himself, his own flushed cock twitching hard between his fingers. He’s encourages by it, spurred on, pulling back his foreskin and stroking two fingers across the leaking head. He bites back a moan with his head turned against his shoulder and then he’s coming—spilling across his stomach—done, spent, _there_.

> [00:25] _T. Shirogane_ : That was good
> 
> [00:25] _T. Shirogane_ : I mean, tell me if this was me pushing this too far. I’ll understand it if it is and no hard feelings!
> 
> [00:26] _T. Shirogane_ : But you could tell me more, some other time. And I could tell you more, if you’d want me to.
> 
> [00:26] _K. Kogane_ : like friends with benefits but on line lol
> 
> [00:26] _K. Kogane_ : ?
> 
> [00:26] _T. Shirogane_ : I think we could call it that, yeah… Are you okay with that?
> 
> [00:27] _K. Kogane_ : youd have known by now if i wasnt
> 
> [00:27] _T. Shirogane_ : Good ;)
> 
> [00:27] _T. Shirogane_ : You should probably try and get some sleep. And sleep well, Keith
> 
> [00:28] _K. Kogane_ : thanks shiro you too :)

* * *

Their chats don’t turn into a daily occurrence but at least two, three times a week he finds himself talking to Shiro at night, with his hand down his pants or his dick leaking against his stomach. And sometimes they just talk, about Earth and the people they miss, although Keith confesses that he feels closer to his parents up here than he ever did before.

Each time, Keith finds it a little easier to look at Shiro during breakfast without blushing, without thinking about _sex_ as well as Shiro.

One morning sticks out, Shiro’s knowing smirk and his raised eyebrows as he sits down unfamiliar although not unlike what Keith expects him to look like in bed. He knows it’s because he wrote something especially graphic, enough that he flushes thinking of it. That’s the morning it finally clicks; Shiro doesn’t act like nothing’s happening because he’s embarrassed or thinks what they are doing is inappropriate, but because he wants Keith to be comfortable.

And Keith is. More and more, he is.

* * *

> [23:30] _T. Shirogane_ : Hey
> 
> [23:30] _K. Kogane_ : honestly you greeting me still weirds me out
> 
> [23:30] _K. Kogane_ : we just saw each other
> 
> [23:31] _T. Shirogane_ : How should I greet you then?
> 
> [23:31] _K. Kogane_ : idk
> 
> [23:31] _K. Kogane_ : maybe just say whats up
> 
> [23:31] _T. Shirogane_ : Well, I think by now I know what is without asking (;
> 
> [23:32] _K. Kogane_ : no
> 
> [23:32] _K. Kogane_ : i hate you shrio
> 
> [23:32] _K. Kogane_ : id correct that but you dont deserve to have your name spelled right
> 
> [23:33] _T. Shirogane_ : I could also log off, leave you to it
> 
> [23:33[ _K. Kogane_ : im jut teasing im sorry
> 
> [23:34] _T. Shirogane_ : Sure, sure. How can I still trust you after this gross betrayal? How can I respect you if you don’t respect me, if
> 
> [23:34] _T. Shirogane_ : … Hang on, I can’t think of anything else.
> 
> [23:34] _K. Kogane_ : lame
> 
> [23:34] _K. Kogane_ : im sure youve more interesting things to talk about
> 
> [23:35] _T. Shirogane_ : Wasn’t it your turn?
> 
> [23:35] _K. Kogane_ : no youre just lazy :)
> 
> [23:35] _T. Shirogane_ : Fine. Give me a moment, though, I need to think of something first.
> 
> [23:37] _T. Shirogane_ : Okay, so there’s this guy alone and lying on his back, hand around the base of his dick. The lighting is soft and it’s day and it’s clear that he’s been hard for a little while because there’s some precome on his stomach but
> 
> [23:37] _T. Shirogane_ : he hasn’t touched himself yet and he isn’t going to, isn’t going to need to.
> 
> [23:37] _K. Kogane_ : is that even possible?
> 
> [23:38] _T. Shirogane_ : You’ve never tried?
> 
> [23:38] _K. Kogane_ : no
> 
> [23:38] _T. Shirogane_ : Well… I can confirm it is (:

  
Keith buries his face in his arm, groaning quietly. Shiro being this open about what he’s done, what he likes, ups the ante considerably. He hopes that’s what this is, anyway, that Shiro is talking about his experiences.

It’s certainly not a bad thing, gauging his body’s response. While he doesn’t need much to get hard generally spoken, he’s certainly not leaking a wet spot into his underwear in under two minutes. He wants to ask Shiro for more information; he wants to know how he did it, whether he has tricks or tips, how it felt for him. He wants to know if Shiro did it while watching porn or with someone watching _him_ , if he did it for himself or show, if —

If it’s alright to slide down his underwear and wrap a hand around the base of his dick, do it the way Shiro described it, a light touch with his fingers resting on his balls, conjuring up a flurry of images that leave him gasping for more.

> [23:40] _T. Shirogane_ : I mean. There are plenty of ways… I’ve seen videos of guys doing it with no hands at all, or fingering or fucking themselves with a toy while they do it, or rubbing their cocks against a pillow or mattress or using the showerhead
> 
> [23:41] _T. Shirogane_ : You’ve never even tried rubbing against your bed? I thought all guys did that
> 
> [23:42] _K. Kogane_ : ive been in shared bedrooms all my teen years i wasnt about to get caught experimenting in there
> 
> [23:42] _K. Kogane_ : and in the desert things were just generally bad
> 
> [23:43] _T. Shirogane_ : But they aren’t anymore?
> 
> [23:43] _K. Kogane_ : were having this conversation arent we
> 
> [23:43] _T. Shirogane_ : Sure. You have your own bedroom now, though
> 
> [23:43] _K. Kogane_ : are you telling me what to do?
> 
> [23:44] _T. Shirogane_ : That depends I guess
> 
> [23:44] _K. Kogane_ : on what?
> 
> [23:44] _T. Shirogane_ : On whether you want me to
> 
> [23:44] _K. Kogane_ : not usually
> 
> [23:44] _T. Shirogane_ : And this time?
> 
> [23:45] _K. Kogane_ : its supposed to feel good isnt it
> 
> [23:45] _T. Shirogane_ : Well, yeah. It does
> 
> [23:45] _K. Kogane_ : OK
> 
> [23:45] _T. Shirogane_ : Keith?

He’s already turned to his stomach.

He did so the moment Shiro mentioned plenty of guys doing this, shoving a mound of his soft duvet between his legs and rolling his hips down slowly, experimentally. He’s been at it for a little while now, likes the slow tease and the fabric pressing not just against his dick and balls but the rest of his stomach, his thighs.

He should let Shiro know how it feels. He _wants_ to let Shiro know, then ask him for more tips, what else Shiro enjoys that Keith should try. Something greedy and wild has come to life inside his chest, ready to demand more—anything Shiro’s willing to give him.

And Keith knows he can encourage Shiro, tries to push the right buttons that’ll give him what he wants right now, both hands free to type while he slowly fucks his sheets. He tries to temper his greed, to direct it towards something more productive, at least for the time being, because already he knows this won’t be their last conversation.

> [23:46] _K. Kogane_ : this feels so good
> 
> [23:46] _K. Kogane_ : tell me more about the vide09
> 
> [23:47] _T. Shirogane_ : So the guy is tensing his muscles, you can see his abs work. It’s almost like he’s fucking the air, gripping his balls tighter and pushing his hips up and his skin looks so smooth
> 
> [23:48] _T. Shirogane_ : And he wipes away some of the precome dripping to his stomach probably to taste i
> 
> [23:49] _T. Shirogane_ : it and from then on it doesn’t take long at all until he comes all over himself, his dick twitching like it has to be a great orgasm and he moans loud
> 
> [23:52] _K. Kogane_ : hhhwow
> 
> [23:52] _T. Shirogane_ : I’m guessing that means success? (‘:
> 
> _ >> K. Kogane sent a picture (message received 23:53)_

He’s high off his orgasm, his dick still hard and his spunk not yet soaking into the fabric when he adjusts the lighting, takes a picture of the stains in his sheets, and hits _send_. Something deep inside of him wants to show Shiro, wants to let him know what he did in a more concrete way—something beyond telling him. He wants to rile him up, get Shiro flustered, and while taking a picture of himself is too scary—this is less intimate.

The check mark, indicating that the message has been received, turns green but Shiro doesn’t respond. Now that he is gradually coming down of his orgasm, his brain rerouting itself into something less horny and more functional, he feels dread settle into his stomach.

This isn’t something they discussed previously, and while he loves pushing Shiro, explore which boundaries still lie between them, he worries that he might have crossed it. 

Shiro remains quiet for another minute and Keith can’t take it anymore—he shoves the datapad under his pillow and then turns it off with shaking hands, feeling sick to his stomach over what he did. Even as he brushes his teeth, he tries to put the entire thing out of his mind. Even if Shiro does mind, which he has no reason to believe, he is a grown man who can inform Keith of his boundaries. Keith will listen, and everything will be fine—and they’ll still be friends.

* * *

Regardless, he sleeps fitfully, his dreams shards of images, visions of Shiro getting angry and stalking off, leaving Voltron without a Black Paladin. As a result, he wakes up uneasy, wrapped in sheets that are damp with sweat and reluctant to start the datapad.

He knows he’ll have to, though—there’s no way he can face Shiro otherwise. So it is that with trembling he starts the device, waiting for the load screen with trepidation before opening the messenger app.

> _> > K. Kogane sent a picture (message received 23:53)_
> 
> [00:00] _T. Shirogane_ : Holy shit
> 
> [00:00] _T. Shirogane_ : Warn a guy next time
> 
> [00:01] _T. Shirogane_ : (;
> 
> [00:02] _T. Shirogane_ : Keith, are you still awake?
> 
> [00:07] _T. Shirogane_ : I’m guessing you went to sleep… Good night in case you still see this.

His cheeks heat up and he promptly shoves the pad back under his pillow.

The message is not what he expected; it’s not a best-case scenario even. The response feels uncharacteristic for Shiro somehow, although Keith knows that it isn’t considering the other conversations they’ve been having.

And so he still can’t look at Shiro over breakfast but it isn’t for the reason he anticipated.

* * *

>   
> [20:23] _T. Shirogane_ : Are you okay?
> 
> [20:24] _K. Kogane_ : yeah just wanted to be alone for a while :)
> 
> [20:24] _K. Kogane_ : lance was annoying today ive had enough of people for a while you know how it is
> 
> [20:25] _T. Shirogane_ : That’s good to hear. I was actually asking because of last night, though?
> 
> [20:26] _K. Kogane_ : im cool w it if you are
> 
> [20:26] _K. Kogane_ : you didnt respond last night so i thought you weren’t
> 
> [20:27] _T. Shirogane_ : Hang on, I’m going to my room. I don’t really want anybody else to see this conversation.
> 
> [20:27] _K. Kogane_ : ok
> 
> [20:35] _T. Shirogane_ : Sorry, that took longer than expected.
> 
> [20:35] _T. Shirogane_ : But no, your picture didn’t make me uncomfortable. At all. That was kind of the reason I didn’t respond.
> 
> [20:35] _K. Kogane_ : …
> 
> [20:35] _T. Shirogane_ : I got distracted, okay? It was… good. Hot as fuck, actually. I really really don’t mind you sending me that

Keith’s heart flips at the thought of Shiro being into him, somehow—or at least turned on by messages that aren’t just about random guys but about Keith himself. He hears the rush of blood in his ears, feels his cheeks heat up and his dick plump up.

Back at the Garrison, most people his age had a crush on Shiro. He doesn’t blame them; he did too, because Shiro’s genial nature and kind smile were always attractive, and always there for Keith. He treated him like a person, and frequently was the only reason Keith stayed out of problems. And, while back then he never even thought to pursue his feelings, the current situation is clearly based on mutual convenience and it certainly helps that Shiro is undeniably good looking.

> [20:36] _K. Kogane_ : okay thats good to hear :)
> 
> [20:36] _T. Shirogane_ : And I’ll tell you if something makes me feel uncomfortable. You should tell me too, for example, if this conversation is too much?
> 
> [20:36] _K. Kogane_ : no
> 
> [20:37] _K. Kogane_ : i mean ill tell you but it isn’t
> 
> [20:37] _K. Kogane_ : its kind of nice actually, it feels good to help someone out
> 
> [20:37] _K. Kogane_ : and youre hot which helps

He bites down on his lip as he sends the last message, sliding his hand down to cup his growing erection. Shiro’s admission that he got off to Keith’s picture is enough to turn him on, to inspire him with new courage.

> [20:37] _T. Shirogane_ : You’re not so bad yourself either, you know
> 
> [20:38] _T. Shirogane_ : Back on earth people would be falling over each other to get a chance with you
> 
> [20:38] _K. Kogane_ : im not interested in people
> 
> [20:39] _K. Kogane_ : but maybe tell me what you liked about the pic?
> 
> [20:39] _T. Shirogane_ : Why?
> 
> [20:39] _T. Shirogane_ : Were you planning to send more?
> 
> [20:39] _K. Kogane_ : wouldnt you like to find out
> 
> [20:40] _K. Kogane_ : (I think you know how to)

Remembering last night, remembering Shiro’s response to the picture, he’s pushing the sheets back between his legs. Even with both hands free and the extra layer of his underwear numbing the stimulation, his fingers still tremble enough that writing is difficult.

“ _Oh shit_ ,” he mutters, grinding down into the not-quite-enough mound of soft sheets.

The anticipation of what Shiro might say turns him on impossibly and lets his imagining run wild, his hips rocking down impatiently as he waits for the next text.

> [20:43] _T. Shirogane_ : Well, I liked that I could see how much you got off fucking your sheets, and that you clearly listened to me and I liked how dirty it was, and unexpected because I didn’t think you’d send me something like that, and I loved that I got to see a bit of your thigh, that was really sexy too
> 
> [20:44] _K. Kogane_ : shit
> 
> [20:44] _K. Kogane_ : i mean thats hot
> 
> [20:45] _T. Shirogane_ : I came all over my abs when you showed me
> 
> [20:45] _K. Kogane_ : wow
> 
> [20:45] _K. Kogane_ : wowowowowwop;;----
> 
> [20:46] _T. Shirogane_ : Did you just get off to this alone?
> 
> [20:46] _K. Kogane_ : no sorry i just dropped the pad on my face
> 
> [20:46] _T. Shirogane_ : Good, because I was going to send something more
> 
> [20:46] _K. Kogane_ : just … thats hot, idk what else to say haha
> 
> [20:47] _K. Kogane_ : shit what
> 
> _> > T. Shirogane sent a picture (message received 20:47)_

Shiro is wearing his sweatpants in the picture that loads on Keith’s screen.

It’s shot from Shiro’s perspective looking down at his body, and the grey fabric leaves little to his imagination. Keith sees the clear outline of Shiro’s dick where it strains against the fabric and casts a shadow down his leg. A black trail of hair runs down Shiro’s stomach, emphasising his rock-hard abs. Most of all, Keith is drawn to the way Shiro has curled his left hand around the base of his dick, letting it stand out even more.

The noise he makes in the back of his throat is involuntary and Keith feels heat surge through his stomach, his dick twitching hard.

> [20:48] _K. Kogane_ : omg
> 
> [20:48] _K. Kogane_ : shir o
> 
> [20:49] _T. Shirogane_ : Is this good enough for you ;)
> 
> [20:49] _K. Kogane_ : jesus well for now it will suffice i guess

_It is_ more _than enough_ , Keith thinks.

He’s gotten on his back wriggled out of his underwear so he can slowly stroke himself, using his free hand to scroll back up to the picture while he waits for Shiro to finish typing.

It truly is a sight to behold, even though Shiro’s not necessarily a good photographer—the light is harsh and unflattering and the singular reason that Shiro is able to pull this off is that he simply looks _that_ good. Shiro knows it, too.

Only now, Keith notices the damp spot in Shiro’s pants, and —

> [20:50] _T. Shirogane_ : But Keith I’m afraid that what you sent me yesterday won’t cut it :(
> 
> [20:50] _T. Shirogane_ : Keith :(
> 
> [20:51] _T. Shirogane_ : Keith help :(
> 
> [20:51] _K. Kogane_ : omg shiro wtf
> 
> [20:51] _K. Kogane_ : maybe i should just send nothing then
> 
> [20:52] _K. Kogane_ : sorry too bad u ruined it
> 
> [20:52] _T. Shirogane_ : I thought you wanted to see my come-covered abs though
> 
> [20:53] _K. Kogane_ : ok hang on

He’s teasing.

For the most part. Maybe.

Keith prefers to chat because it’s easier to say what he thinks, things that won’t come out when he’s talking to people—even with Shiro he feels awkward and stilted when they’re talking about feelings or other topics that are too intimate. Hell, he’s sure he couldn’t have a conversation about something sex related without blushing profusely—and even now he feels flustered, but at least no one is around to see that response.

In a picture, Shiro can’t see everything, anyway.

He takes his time finding a good position on the bed, angling the lamp away so the light is softer. He hasn’t done anything like this in forever, not since he was much younger and liked seeing his own body on camera more than he did in real life.

This means that his knowledge of sexy selfies exists but is a bit rusty; he remembers to pull up one leg, how to throw his head back and tense his muscles just a little, for extra definition. He strokes his hand from his thigh into a loose hold around his dick for a couple of options, and the angle helps make his cock seem sexy instead of something unsexy, one-in-a-dozen.

He’s thrumming with a strange vibrant excitement the entire time, clicking away at his tab, and he picks out a picture to Shiro while stroking himself, flicking his thumb over the head, imagining Shiro’s response for each of them.

In the end he settles on a slightly underlit photo, the shadows a little taller and his hand covering most of his dick, although the head is entirely visible with glistening precome pearling at the tip. Shiro will get a good shot of his legs, though, and Keith flushes again the moment he realises that soon, Shiro might be moaning not because of something Keith says but because of his actual body.

With a shaky breath, he hits _send_.

> [20:55] _T. Shirogane_ : If you’re having second thoughts, you don’t have to
> 
> _> > K. Kogane sent a picture (message received 20:57)_
> 
> [20:57] _T. Shirogane_ : holy quiznacfdh
> 
> [20:58] _T. Shirogane_ : where’d you learn to
> 
> [20:58] _T. Shirogane_ : take pictures like that, you look amazing

If Keith wasn’t close before he sent the picture, he certainly is now. Something about seeing Shiro’s praise twists his insides in the best way, makes him feel good and want to be a better person. He licks his lips and bites back a quiet moan.

> [20:59] _T. Shirogane_ : Keith you have such a pretty dick

Keith has no time to put the pad aside before he’s coming, groaning when he spills over his fist and stomach, drops clinging to the back of his datapad that he didn’t manage to push out of the way in time.

He strokes himself through his orgasm, milks the last drops of come from his dick, and finally reaches for his shirt so he can clean his hand and pad.

> [21:03] _K. Kogane_ : why thank you
> 
> [21:03] _K. Kogane_ : do you really think so
> 
> _> > T. Shirogane sent a picture (message received 21:05)_

Shiro’s abs do look better covered in come, Keith decides. Definitely sexier.

He can see Shiro’s dick still mostly hard between his legs and out of focus, can see Shiro’s left hand smeared with come, and the image is vivid enough that he can effortlessly imagine Shiro jerking himself to completion.

Keith’s dick twitches feebly and he figures he needs maybe ten, twenty minutes before he can go again.

> [21:05] _K. Kogane_ : i beat you oldtimer :)
> 
> [21:05] _K. Kogane_ : and thats a really good look on you
> 
> [21:06] _T. Shirogane_ : Thank you very much, and we are not all virile youngsters anymore
> 
> [21:06] _T. Shirogane_ : By we I mean you and I
> 
> [21:06] _T. Shirogane_ : I mean
> 
> [21:07] _T. Shirogane_ : There are ways to last longer
> 
> [21:08] _K. Kogane_ : maybe you should tell me tomorrow
> 
> [21:08] _K. Kogane_ : but i need a shower right now
> 
> _> > K. Kogane sent a picture (message received 21:08)_
> 
> [21:09] _T. Shirogane_ : Yeah that’s a mess alright, go shower haha

Keith postpones his shower until after he comes again, panting with exertion as he stares at Shiro’s last picture.

By then he truly does feel disgusting, and once he’s clean all he wants to do is crawl into bed and go to sleep. Bedtime this early feels odd, contrary to his entire character in many ways, but his sheets are welcoming.

When he doesn’t fall asleep right away, he pulls the string of messages back up.

There’s something about the tone he can’t quite place. Keith always figured that sexting would include a lot of dick pics and sexy messages—and they’ve exchanged those, of course—but not the gentle teasing back and forth. Maybe that’s his friendship with Shiro seeping into the conversation, and he doesn’t mind. If anything, he thinks this might be what makes it better.

* * *

He barely manages to duck out of the way of Shiro’s swinging arm.

Shiro’s always fought with a fierce determination, especially after his time in captivity, but he’s more intense today—he’s advancing on Keith again and again, leaving him no time to breathe or recalibrate before moving back in.

Exhaustion is starting to set in for Keith and he knows Shiro must feel it too, but he’s not showing it. Instead he’s circling Keith, his eyes flitting up and down his body, from his firm grip on his sword to his free hand to his stance, trying to catch him off guard.

Keith doesn’t let him. He moves first, fast, deliberately letting his sword bounce off Shiro’s arm before dropping it and wrapping his arms around Shiro’s waist. The force he puts into his motion throws off Shiro’s balance and they both fall to the floor with a harsh _bang_ that reverberates across the training deck.

“Shit,” Shiro curses, and only now Keith notices how out of breath he is.

“Gotcha,” he mutters, twisting his body until he’s sitting on top of Shiro, pinning his arms down with his full weight.

It’s a position he can’t hold for long; even now he feels Shiro’s abs work under his thighs, ready to throw him back off.

“You seem pretty worked up today,” he tells Shiro, smirking as Shiro raises his brow.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know yet,” he says, leaning closer. “Help you get rid of some excess energy.”

He chooses his words carefully, letting ambiguity slip in and he can tell that something changes between them, ramping up the electric tension already in the room. The shift is visible on Shiro’s face until he’s wearing an expression Keith hasn’t seen before. He’s not fighting Keith’s grip anymore but staring up at him instead with a loaded gaze.

“Yeah?” Shiro asks, and this time his voice is low and rough, sending a tingle down Keith’s spine. “Like you have been?”

“Yeah,” Keith nods, more breathless now than before. He knows Shiro can feel the heat radiating off him, knows he can because he feels Shiro’s, his body suddenly hyperaware of every place they are touching—and more so of where they aren’t. “Like that,” he mutters.

Shiro’s face is flushed a pretty light pink, and he’s licking his lips, staring at Keith’s mouth like he wants to kiss him. That sends another jolt through Keith’s body, takes his breath away, and he thinks maybe he should stop, give in and tap out, but he _can’t_.

“Keith,” Shiro mutters, and Keith is leaning down, closer, wonders what it’d be like to brush their lips together.

He doesn’t expect to be pushed off, shoved onto his back with Shiro towering over him.

“I think that’s enough for now—” Shiro says, trailing off as his eyes drag down Keith’s figure. This time, Keith doesn’t try to hide the full body shiver. “I’m going to shower.”

With that, the mood in the room returns to normal and Shiro’s exit leaves Keith trying to catch his breath, still on his back on the floor, still rock-hard in his training gear.

* * *

> [19:02] _T. Shirogane_ : I’m sorry to push you away like that
> 
> [19:03] _T. Shirogane_ : I hope you understand

Keith does, on multiple levels.

He understands that this isn’t something they have discussed before and he is aware that this could potentially more actively affect the power balance in the team. He knows that acting on the spur of the moment might have gone bad, that the public setting probably didn’t help—

None of the arguments soften the blow of Shiro’s rejection.

>   
> [19:18] _K. Kogane_ : dont worry i get it
> 
> [19:19] _K. Kogane_ : its just
> 
> [19:19] _K. Kogane_ : idk its fine

  
He pushes his damp hair back from his face as he waits for Shiro’s reply. The excitement he felt during the sparring has morphed into something sour, sharp and stinging in his chest, and he wants to lash out at Shiro, and more than that he wants to push him and mess with him in the hope that the spite he feels will dissolve the painful lump in his throat.

 _Deep breaths_ , he thinks to himself. _Joke about it, don’t be angry._

> [19:22] _K. Kogane_ : you left me hard though
> 
> [19:23] _T. Shirogane_ : Did I? I didn’t notice (;
> 
> [19:23] _K. Kogane_ : yeah that was super mean im upset :(
> 
> [19:24] _T. Shirogane_ : I’m sorry, Keith, I really didn’t mean it that way
> 
> [19:24] _K. Kogane_ : what are you going to do about it
> 
> [19:24] _K. Kogane_ : you cant exactly kiss it better
> 
> [19:25] _T. Shirogane_ : I absolutely would if you came by my room
> 
> [19:26] _K. Kogane_ : i cant tell if thats a joke or serious
> 
> [19:26] _T. Shirogane_ : It’s whatever you want it to be
> 
> _< < K. Kogane is typing … >>_

His is shaking when he tentatively knocks on Shiro’s door.

 _There’s nothing to be nervous about_ , he tells himself. Still, he braces himself for the lock clicking shut or Shiro telling him to go away.

“Come on in,” he hears instead, the door zooming open and letting Keith in. Shiro is sitting propped up against the headboard of his bed with his datapad and a bunch of blankets in his lap. The look that crosses his face is when he sees Keith is the same as on the training deck.

The door locks behind him and Shiro sets aside the pad, pushing the blankets from his legs; he’s wearing sweatpants, probably the same as yesterday, and he’s undeniably hard.

Keith doesn’t spare himself any thought. Instead he stalks over to the bed, climbing into Shiro’s lap. Shiro looks up at him with flushed cheeks, his hand finding Keith’s hip as he leans down and presses their mouths together. It’s awkward and too rough as he slicks his tongue over Shiro’s lips; Shiro makes a surprised noise, his grip on Keith’s hip tightening as his other hand finds Keith’s neck, pulling him close and kissing back.

“Shit,” he mutters against Keith’s lips, teeth, tongue, not even breaking the kiss.

Shiro’s too gentle, Keith thinks, as the fire burning inside of him demands something more, something bigger. Shiro doesn’t give in to Keith’s pushing; he lets their teeth clash together and laughs when Keith pulls back and bites down on his own lip before soothing it over with his metal thumb.

“It’s okay to slow down,” he whispers at Keith, looking up at him with a twinkle in his eyes.

Keith wants to say _no_ or _yes_ or _I don’t know how to_ but all he manages is a wrecked “Shiro.”

Shiro slowly strokes his back, moving back in for a kiss. This time around, Keith resists the urge to shove his tongue into Shiro’s mouth until Shiro acts first, gentle sweeps along Keith’s lips that send heat pulsing through his entire body.

The kiss is better this way and Keith likes that Shiro’s showed him but _hates_ that he’s had to. Still, Keith’s inexperience doesn’t stop Shiro, who deepens their kisses little by little until Keith is grinding his hips down against Shiro’s, trying to find some friction.

Instead, Shiro’s hand brushes over Keith’s ribcage in slow, gentle movements, like he’s trying to coax him into slower breathing. His thumb brushes Keith’s nipple, and he groans again, his hips stuttering forward hard enough that he breaks the kiss to look at Shiro. He’s close, unexpectedly so, all the places Shiro touches an instant connection of pleasure to his dick. Shiro looks up at him with big eyes, pupils blown, a smirk on his lips as he pats Keith’s hip.

“Up,” he says, and Keith nods.

His muscles tremble and his joints feel weak as he gets up on his knees. He braces himself against the wall above Shiro’s head for support and Shiro pulls his sweatpants down, letting the cool air brush across his overheated skin, sighing at the sensation.

He’s rock-hard but unsure of what Shiro wants next, so he stays in position and lets Shiro watch his cock for long moments, the heat in his stomach growing all the time. Finally, Shiro darts in close and drags the tip of his tongue across the glans.

Keith’s hips buck forward of their own accord, hard enough that Shiro reaches up to hold him; Keith overbalances and topples backwards onto the bed, his heart racing from the sudden burst of adrenalin and mortification. When he raises his head, he finds that Shiro is looking at him with an impressively blank face and Keith is embarrassed enough that he wants to run from this situation and never face Shiro or anyone else ever again. He thinks about expelling himself into space, see how that goes. Then Shiro giggles, his fingers curling around Keith’s ankle and rubbing soothing circles into the skin.

“Come here,” he tells Keith, pulling at the sweats bunched around his lower legs. Keith helps Shiro by kicking them off before crawling back into his lap.

Meeting Shiro’s gaze is difficult because Keith is afraid that he’ll be made fun of, worries about Shiro embarrassing him further. He doesn’t, though, instead looking at Keith fondly before he tenderly brushes back his hair, forcing Keith to look at him.

Instead of speaking, Shiro leans up for another kiss, obliterating all embarrassment with his tongue and his touch. His hands come back to rest on Keith’s hips, keeping him stable and in place. The head of Keith’s dick rubs against Shiro’s bare stomach and he shivers at the sensation, rocking forward in search of more friction. Shiro lets him rub against the taut skin over hard muscle a few times, smearing around sticky precome, before he curls a loose fist around Keith’s cock.

“Did you like that?” he mutters into Keith’s mouth. “Feeling my mouth on you that way?”

And he remembers it clearly, the soft wet heat of Shiro tentatively licking out to taste him; even the memory makes him shudder. “Yeah,” he gasps.

He feels Shiro’s smile against his lips as he continues, “Maybe—someday—I’ll let you fuck my mouth.”

The idea of Shiro’s plush mouth around his dick, sucking and licking and performing whatever magic it might be, almost tips him over the edge. He shudders again and his cock twitches hard in Shiro’s hand as he whimpers. Shiro moves his hand, curling his fingers around the base and squeezing firmly until the sharp feeling of pleasure dwindles and Keith relaxes a little, catching his breath again.

“You can touch me too, if you want,” Shiro informs him on another whisper.

“ _Oh_.” Keith groans, closing his eyes for a moment before he reaches down, fumbling with the knot in the drawstring before shoving down the front of Shiro’s sweatpants. Shiro’s dick slaps up against his stomach and he’s bigger than Keith, thicker, curved to the left and wet at the tip. Shiro’s eyes are on him as he starts to stroke him; the velvet-hot heat and the hardness underneath are not too different from his own, although it’s strange to touch a dick from this angle and without the immediate feedback of pleasure.

“You’re doing good.” Shiro’s whisper lands close to his ear this time, his mouth trailing hot down Keith’s neck as they stroke each other. “Feels great.”

Keith nods and finds Shiro’s jaw with his free hand, messily pulling him in for another kiss. Coordinating the movement of his hand with the kiss becomes increasingly difficult, especially once he needs to fight to stay still, to not rock into Shiro’s touch and chase his orgasm.

“So good,” he echoes, gasping again. Shiro knows what he’s doing and Keith is close, closer, the intensity almost too much when Shiro teases his thumb around the head.

“Do you wanna come?” Shiro asks and Keith shudders, nods.

“Please,” he whimpers, “please, please.”

“Make me come first, yeah?”

Shiro noses along Keith’s jaw, licks his neck and then along his collarbone, and Keith is shaking apart at the seams. To last longer, he consciously sets aside the memory of Shiro licking his dick, has to ignore how Shiro’s hand feels on his dick and instead focus on the sounds that drop from Shiro’s mouth. He tries to mimic the things Shiro is doing to him, touching the head, rubbing at the frenulum—and that earns him a quiet moan from Shiro.

When he leans back a little so he can see Shiro’s face, he can see the flush that extends over the bridge of his nose and down his cheeks, his neck and his chest. His scar looks blotchy pink-and-white like this, still in the process of healing, and his eyes are half-lid like he can’t keep them open but tries, tries, tries just to see Keith.

Keith gasps again and he tightens his hold on Shiro, moving faster—because he wants to see Shiro as he comes and he wants Shiro to make him, too, he wants all of it and he wants more.

His free hand Keith uses to touch Shiro’s chest, running a nail across his nipple and earning another quiet gasp, this time accompanied by Shiro’s hips twitching up under his ass.

“Tighter,” is all Shiro grunts before his dick pulses at regular intervals, each twitch spilling come over his stomach and dripping down Keith’s fingers. He’s gasping through it quietly, his eyes closed and his jaw slack and Keith strokes him through it, until he feels Shiro’s hips shift again and Keith figures that he’s too sensitive now.

The intimacy of seeing _Shiro_ like this—and not some random stranger in porn—pulls at something deep in his chest but Keith has no time to dwell on it once Shiro grabs his cock again. This time his touch is slow and firm and Keith is gasping within moments, his hand curling around Shiro’s wrist as he’s torn between fucking into the touch or pulling away.

“C’mon,” Shiro mutters, leaning forward to kiss him. He feels more relaxed against Keith and Keith feels like a drawn bowstring, shaking in Shiro’s arms.

“Ah, ah, _ah_ ,” he frantically moans as Shiro slides his foreskin over the sensitive head on the upstroke, as he pushes it back on the glide down, as he moves his metal arm a little so that his thumb rubs the sensitive skin on the inside of his thigh.

Shiro jerks him off faster, tighter, and then Keith comes as well. He braces himself on Shiro’s shoulders with his free hand, the other still around Shiro’s wrist, as he rides out the waves of pleasure. Shiro drags them out endlessly until he finally rests his fingers around Keith’s softening cock and leans their foreheads together.

Shiro waits until Keith catches his breath, until his heart has stopped its erratic beat and relaxation washes over him; all he wants is to collapse into Shiro’s hug and sleep. Shiro drags him from his lethargy, leaning in and kissing him softly, close-lipped and brief, before quietly telling him, “Alright, let’s get cleaned up.”

They wash side-by-side in Shiro’s tiny en-suite, each with their own wet towel. Keith watches Shiro via the mirror and when Shiro notices, he pulls a face. The normalcy of the gesture relaxes Keith, comforts him as he wipes the wet cloth over his tacky skin. He can see smears of come drying across Shiro’s shoulders, where he’d grabbed him for balance, can feel it on his own hips and legs and stomach.

Keith notices the subtle shift back to just-friends, to what they were before he entered the room and what they always have been. The thought is comforting, helpful in that it makes everything easier—the trek back into Shiro’s bedroom, finding his underwear and his sweatpants half covered by the bedsheets and pulling them on while Shiro talks about Lance running into a door earlier in the day.

He hesitates for a moment before he leaves, wondering what the proper etiquette is here—does he kiss Shiro? Does he act like nothing happened?—and then Shiro says, “Good night,” with a gentle smile and a hand on Keith’s shoulder; Keith responds and then he’s alone in the corridor.

He walks back to his own room in a daze, crawling under the sheets and falling asleep there, curled up into a ball around his blankets and without dreams.

* * *

He’s not sure if Shiro touches him more afterwards.

Maybe he’s imagining the pat on his shoulder, the hand on his back, Shiro bumping their arms together when they cross each other in the corridor. He doesn’t mind but feels awkward about leaning into the touch, like maybe he shouldn’t, like it is improper to do so in public.

At night, he finds himself drawn to his datapad more than ever. Shiro must feel similarly because they chat most nights, barring the times when at least one of them is tired—and since they’re both Paladins, the most exhausting days tend to hit them at the same time. It doesn’t necessarily end in sexting and thus far, it hasn’t again ended with them in the same room, but that isn’t to say that Shiro hasn’t alluded to it.

Keith is left with confusion that has been difficult to deal with. He isn’t sure how to unify the two versions of Shiro that he now knows—the Shiro that he’s friends with in public is entirely different from the Shiro he is now getting to know privately, a Shiro that keeps something in his eyes that Keith can’t describe but which has him run hotter than the surface of the fucking sun.

Keith has never been good at asking for what he wants. Not when it’s for himself.

Right now, he’s on the couch in the lounge watching sentient breadstick aliens speak a language he can’t understand in what might be a rom-com, or possibly a thriller. Lance, miraculously, is fully engrossed in whatever is happening on screen to the point that Keith wonders whether he can understand the language. Pidge is sitting on the other side of the couch, typing away on her laptop with oversized headphones blocking out the other noise.

As for Shiro, he is standing leaning up against the couch behind Keith. He is hyperaware of Shiro’s body heat even as he talks to Hunk, who is taste-testing new ingredients they picked up at the last planet they visited and frantically scoring their individual properties in a notebook.

Shiro’s hand slowly finds its way to Keith’s shoulder, where he gently pushes his thumb into the knot of muscles that’s been bothering Keith all day, like he somehow knows about Keith’s discomfort. He wonders how closely Shiro watches him, whether he figured it out based on the way Keith held himself when he stepped out of Red or maybe noticed the way he rubbed his back during dinner.

Keith fights the overwhelming urge to lean back, to seek out more warmth and hard muscle and he swallows against the sudden dry feeling in his mouth. This is how he should only feel when he’s alone in his room, or behind a locked door with Shiro when everyone else is asleep and won’t notice. Keith’s heartbeat speeds up until he can hear the pulse of blood in his head and then he’s stumbling to his feet, half-hard and far too warm, saying, “I’m—I’m tired, I’m going to bed.” His voice sounds distant even to himself and Shiro frowns at him—Keith isn’t sure if the others notice something is up mostly because he has no eyes for them at all.

He is out of it enough that he doesn’t notice Shiro is following him until he’s almost made it back to his room. Shiro’s frowning like he is worried, stepping into the room after Keith.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

Keith nods and all he wants to do is kiss Shiro, his fingers buzzing with the need to reach out now that Shiro’s earlier touch has ignited his craving for physical intimacy. “I’m sorry, it’s just—”

“Tired,” Shiro finishes for him. “That’s okay, it was just that you left so fast I was worried whether I did something wrong, or something.” He doesn’t leave yet. “Actually, now that I’m here I kind of want to ask you something, if you’re okay with that.” Immediately, anxiety grips Keith’s guts like a vice, but he nods anyway; he doesn’t want to hear Shiro say he wants to break off their little agreement. He must turn pale because Shiro throws in a smile and says, “Nothing bad, don’t worry. I just wanted to check whether you’re uncomfortable with me touching you.”

A beat passes, then another as Keith contemplates lying to Shiro. “I am,” he finally admits, because Shiro has always been good at handling Keith’s truths. “I just don’t know if—I don’t know how much touching is okay.”

Shiro nods, stepping closer. Keith feels heat return to his face and stomach and he fights to keep his eyes on Shiro. “In public? Or in private too?”

Keith shrugs helplessly.

“I didn’t think you regretted the other night,” Shiro continues, and the words are relentless—Keith wants to run, but more than that, he knows that this conversation is long overdue. Shiro knows how to make him talk, knows how to pick his moment without coercing Keith into it. “Did you?”

“I don’t,” he confesses. “I just—I haven’t done this before.”

“ _This_ ,” Shiro echoes.

Keith nods, licks his dry lips and this time he does look away from Shiro. The words won’t come otherwise, he is too vulnerable to allow Shiro to see all of it. “Anything. With someone else.”

Shiro’s hand is on his shoulder again, gently guiding him towards the bed; they sit down beside each other so that Keith isn’t forced to look at Shiro. Instead he studies his hands and feels Shiro’s gaze on him, his breath ghosting over his skin. “Yeah. I kind of figured,” Shiro says. “I probably should have brought it up when you didn’t, but I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“Yeah.” Keith feels awkward, embarrassed that they need to have this talk.

“And for what it’s worth, I’ve never done this whole friends with benefits thing either.” From the corners of his eyes, Keith can see Shiro has fixed his gaze on the wall ahead and a pink flush has bloomed across his nose. “Maybe you noticed that, too.”

“We were both a bit awkward, I guess,” Keith shrugs, fighting a smile that’s winning when Shiro sits down beside him on the bed.

“But really,” Shiro continues, “if I do make you uncomfortable, please—”

“You’ll know,” Keith tells him. “You—I mean, you kind of did back in the lounge just now.” He might as well be honest now, with Shiro here and their thighs pressing hot together.

“I’m sorry.” The apology is swift and well-meant, but it isn’t what Keith wants to hear right now.

“No,” he coughs. “Don’t be. I mean, it felt good which was the problem because everyone else was there.” Shiro doesn’t respond for a moment so he reiterates, “It felt really, really good.”

“Felt like a pretty bad knot,” Shiro nods solemnly. “I’d figured it would.”

“Yeah,” Keith decides to play along, the nerves in his stomach dissipating. “Maybe you can work the rest of it out?” At the moment, this is as close as he can get to telling Shiro he has no regrets having sex with Shiro and does intend to keep going. He hadn’t wanted to tell Shiro about his lack of experience in case he would scare him off. 

Instead of putting his hands on Keith’s shoulders, Shiro gently traces his thumb down the curve of his neck. Keith shivers and Shiro chuckles before he does as promised, digging his fingers into the aching muscle.

In private, Keith has no qualms about moving back into the touch or groaning when the tension that has been bothering him for days now releases bit by bit, the pain of the pressure quickly overcome by the sweet relief of relaxing muscles. He lets his head hang forward as Shiro massages him with a firm touch, relentlessly forcing the knots out until his muscles are tender but without any remaining tightness.

“Thanks,” he grumbles, and his voice comes out low and gravelly, the way it did when he was in Shiro’s lap, his cum dripping down Shiro’s chest. With his legs spread there is no hiding that he’s hard, and Shiro continues to massage his back when Keith leans back against his hand.

“Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?” Shiro says with a smirk, and Keith half-heartedly swats at him.

“Do I have to?” he asks. He knows Shiro can see his half-hard dick in his sweatpants.

Shiro shrugs, staring at him and licking his lips. “I mean, it’s been a while. Some certainty would be nice, I guess.”

“We talked dirty last night,” Keith reminds him.

“Not the same.”

Shiro is right, of course, and Keith knows it but he enjoys the teasing back and forth. “I sent you a picture.”

Shiro’s flush deepens, and he leans closer to Keith, like his resolve is starting to waver. “Yeah… That _was_ a very good picture,” he nods and wets his lips like his mouth is parchment—and Keith knows that feeling. “Maybe you should recreate it.” He’s close enough that Keith feels his toothpaste-fresh breath land on his cheek in hot puffs.

“Maybe _you_ should,” Keith whispers back, tilting his head and closing the space between them.

Shiro immediately kisses back, his hand still on Keith’s neck and rubbing gentle circles into the skin. Keith whimpers as Shiro lowers him onto the sheets, making sure his descent is slow and controlled but already reaching for the hem of his shirt like he’s been craving this as much as Keith has.

He is not sure whether to focus on Shiro licking into his mouth and nipping at his lips, or on the flat of Shiro’s hand sliding up his ribcage, the touch almost ticklish. They break the kiss only when Shiro pulls off Keith’s shirt and then he’s on top of him again, heavy, hot and _hard_.

Keith bucks his hips up and pushes Shiro’s shirt up to bare his abs, his chest, until he finally gets the gest of it and sits up to take it off. Keith takes a moment to trail his eyes over Shiro’s muscles before he wraps his legs around Shiro’s waist and flips them over.

“Woah,” Shiro huffs, smiling up at Keith.

“Maybe,” Keith mutters, “I was thinking if I should recreate something else we discussed.”

He doesn’t tell Shiro that he wants to grind their hips together like he pretended to do when he fucked his sheets, not only when Shiro guided him through it but several times after, pretending it was hot and hard muscle—but Shiro might know, anyway.

Even through multiple layers of clothing, he feels the heat that radiates from Shiro’s body, from the hard line of his dick rubbing against Keith’s. Shiro’s metal hand squeezes Keith’s ass, guiding him down increasingly faster; the other hand cups the back of his neck, strokes through the strands of hair that tangle between his fingers—like he knows exactly how to touch Keith to make him feel best.

“Shit,” Keith groans, forcing his hips down again as Shiro slides his hand down his back and into his underwear to get at the bare skin. “Take off your pants.”

Shiro moans and lets go of Keith, shoving his sweats down his thighs. Keith does the same and gently lowers himself back onto Shiro, shuddering as he feels his foreskin catch against Shiro’s abs and the hard warmth of Shiro’s dick alongside his own.

He rocks down experimentally, his pleasure amplified by Shiro’s groans, the way he grabs Keith’s ass again.

“Like this?” he asks, repeating the motion. Shiro nods and pulls Keith in for another deep kiss.

They start out slow, but soon the tensions of the past weeks, a cumulation of the late-night chats and fighting an intergalactic space war—sneak into their motions.

Humping the sheets felt good, but this is infinitely better, with Shiro’s hands roaming over him like he can’t decide on which part of Keith feels best, kissing him until they pant into each other’s mouth while Keith revels in teasing more moans from Shiro’s lips.

“I’m close,” he finally manages, shoving his hips forward again. He’s teetering on the edge, ready to burst, and Shiro nods.

“You don’t need my permission,” he gently teases, both hands finding Keith’s ass and squeezing firmly.

“ _Shiro_ ,” he groans. He doesn’t know what compels him to say the name, only that it’s torn from somewhere deep in his chest as he spills between their bodies, shivering through his orgasm as he rides it out. Soon, he feels Shiro still under him and he feebly tries to give him some friction but finds that he’s too sensitive—and then he’s too late anyway, feeling the spread of more wet heat between their abs.

“Fuck,” Shiro pants, finally letting go of Keith’s ass. He lets his head drop back to the pillow and Keith rests his own against Shiro’s shoulder—it’s a little bony and more than a little uncomfortable, but he isn’t yet ready to move.

A warm, heavy arm lies curled around his waist, slowly rubbing at the skin, and Keith is starting to doze off. He should be uncomfortable, with his pants only half-off and on top of Shiro instead of a comfortable mattress, in bed with someone else—but there’s something strangely comforting to it all.

Maybe not to the tacky, drying mess between them.

He groans as he starts to get up, Shiro letting his hand drop away. While he didn’t feel self-conscious the last time, Keith does now. Shiro watches him with heavy eyes, his eyes tracking up and down his body like he still enjoys what he’s seeing even now the come is drying and Keith’s dick hangs soft between his legs.

He doesn’t linger, doesn’t give Shiro too much time to see, instead padding into the bathroom to get cleaned up. Shiro waits out his turn, for no reason discernible to Keith, and by the time Shiro’s done cleaning Keith has crawled into bed.

“Thanks,” Shiro smiles at him, reaching down to ruffle his hair. “Sleep well, okay?”

“Yeah, you too.” He smiles back and Shiro gives him a little wave before walking out the door. _Cute_ , Keith thinks.

Then he turns his face into his pillow and realises that it still smells like Shiro, his shampoo and after-shave, and he tries to hide his smile against the fabric even though there’s no one there to see.

* * *

> [17:31] _L. McClain_ : whats up between u and shiro
> 
> [17:36] _K. Kogane_ : what happened to saying hi like a polite person?
> 
> [17:39] _L. McClain_ : im pretty sure i said hi this morning at breakfast
> 
> [17:39] _L. McClain_ : stop trying to distract me though for real whats up uv been weird
> 
> [17:44] _K. Kogane_ : why are you asking me and not shiro
> 
> [17:47] _L. McClain_ : i did but he said ur good and its none of my business
> 
> [17:49] _K. Kogane_ : well there you go

* * *

Now that he has Shiro’s explicit permission, it’s easier to seek out the physical contact.

Keith has always thought of himself as a loner, someone who doesn’t particularly need nor want other people around him—and that extends to touch. Shiro’s hugs have always been more welcome than most others’ and living in the castle with people who are all tactile have made Keith marginally more comfortable with it, but he’s never been the person to seek out contact.

Not until now, anyway. He’ll find himself putting a hand on Shiro’s arm or elbow or shift a little closer when they’re on the couch in the lounge; a couple of times after an especially draining mission, he turns to Shiro for a hug.

Now they are on Olkarion, its inhabitants profusely grateful for the Paladins’ protection of the planet. They are throwing a ball and Keith tries to eat the food served, but he feels queasy, sick at the idea that Voltron is not only instrumental in saving planets but also does the environment damage. For the first time, the thought is sinking in in a true, visceral way.

Shiro is beside him, at least, and they drink a milky vanilla-fruit flavoured liquor heady enough that he soon feels tipsy. Being relaxed helps his appetite and socialisation, but when they are requested to leave the tables and move to the ballroom, discomfort overrides the alcohol regardless.

“Are you okay?” Shiro comes up to whisper.

Keith shrugs. He knows there is no point in lying to Shiro and telling him that yes, he is. “I don’t like this kind of diplomatic bullshit, it feels so weird when all we did was our job?”

Shiro chuckles. “Yeah, I didn’t think you would.” His hand comes to rest on Keith’s lower back and a shiver runs through his body—he’s dressed up in the fine robes the Olkari gave all of them. Shiro’s are made from sleek black fabric that seems to glitter in the quiet green light of the hall, and he looks gorgeous. “Come on, let’s talk to some people and we’ll see about getting you out of here before the event is over.”

Keith nods. It doesn’t take long before he’s whisked away by an Olkari who wants to know what life on earth is like, which quickly devolves to Keith describing the flora and fauna of the desert, since that is what he knows best. Over her shoulder he sees Shiro talk with a tall diplomat, but he frequently meets Keith’s eyes.

When the lady eventually decides she wants to dance, Keith lets her go. He’s not sure if she noticed his discomfort surrounding the dance floor or if she is more interested in dancing by herself, but the idea of putting himself on display like that doesn’t particularly appeal to him.

Shiro is still talking to the diplomat who is closing in on him with a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. Something tugs at Keith’s stomach and he bites his lip before turning around and looking for more Olkari booze. He knows that if he went up to Shiro now and told him he wants to leave, that would be perfectly fine—but he doesn’t think of himself as an intruder, and Shiro looks like he’s having fun, laughing and joking with the guy.

He tries to avoid eye-contact as he downs another glass and lets the cotton-wool feeling rush over him, closing his eyes as he sighs into the sensation.

“C’mon,” Shiro murmurs in his ear, his body pressing up behind Keith. Keith doesn’t expect him there and startles, turns his head to find kind grey eyes looking down on him. “If you’re drinking to get through the night, it’s time to leave.”

“You were talking to someone,” Keith says. He tries to ignore the heat in his chest, shove it off on the alcohol. “I didn’t want to interrupt your fun.”

Shiro hums as he guides Keith out of the room and into a corridor. Branches extend over their heads and the air is cooler here, which means that Shiro’s body heat is even more noticeable.

“Please don’t think you’re ever a bother to me,” Shiro tells him, and then he wraps his arms around Keith’s shoulders, pulling him close. Keith melts into the touch; he feels small for the first time in a long while and doesn’t hate it—not when he gets to breathe in Shiro’s scent through his shirt, press his cheek to his heartbeat and feel steadied by his touch.

He is still learning to care less about who sees this kind of affection between him and Shiro, to let go of that worry that gnaws at him about how people see him if they know he needs physical contact too, learning to let go of the shame and the embarrassment that have somehow always surrounded touch. Shiro has never minded any of that—he’s always been more tactile, quick to respond to people touching him and at times seeking them out. Last week, he tickled Keith before dropping his full weight onto him.

Now he just sighs into the hug as he lets exhaustion show on his face.

“Hey,” Keith mutters, stroking his fingers through Shiro’s hair. _So soft_ , he thinks. 

“Hey,” Shiro responds, smiling tiredly.

“I thought I was the one that needed saving tonight?”

Shiro shrugs. “Well, didn’t you?”

He is still looking at Keith intently and something twists in his stomach. Keith wonders about that, sometimes, whether getting trained into viscerally responding to Shiro good or bad. Or maybe it is Shiro’s hand on his back dipping a little lower, the little finger teasingly brushing the top of Keith’s ass.

“Come on, let’s head to our rooms,” Keith decides. His voice is low and rough, and he lets his fingers brush Shiro’s thigh as they get walking. The shift that they usually only go through in private is happening right here, where the corridors are empty, but anybody _could_ potentially see them.

And to feel this wanted, to feel needed like this makes Keith feel better. He isn’t used to be the person someone else turns to for affection, but he thinks he might be for Shiro, even if their way of showing isn’t necessarily the most conventional.

The buzz of alcohol helps, to be braver and walk a little closer to Shiro, to reach out with teasing touches sometimes and look up to see Shiro’s gaze already waiting for him.

“Do you want to come in?” he asks Keith when they get to his room.

The question is rhetorical, it has to be. Heat soars through his body.

He nods, steps in, and the moment the door closes Shiro pushes him up against the wood. He doesn’t kiss Keith yet, although his hands are on Keith’s hips; instead he presses their foreheads together and breathes—in, out, in, out—the ghost of a touch brushing over Keith’s face. He’s teasing, and Keith lets him because the frustration he feels will turn to excitement once he gets what he wants.

“C’mere,” he whispers at Shiro, sliding his hand to his neck.

“Mm,” Shiro murmurs, brushing their lips together before darting away again, closing his eyes for a moment. He looks tired but more comfortable away from the crowd. “Why do you look so good in these clothes?”

Keith’s robes are a deep burgundy and he’s had to get used to the complex wrappings that run from his shoulders to his ankles. The fabric is soft like silk and comfortably hugs his naked skin.

“Dunno,” he responds. “Same reason you do?”

Keith is desperate to feel those lips on his own, but he quenches the urge to reach up first. Shiro trails his left hand up from his hip, along his ribcage—Keith fights not to squirm under its ticklishness. The movement is ever so slow and his heartbeat increases; all the while Shiro keeps brushing his lips over Keith’s skin, a whisper of a kiss here, a ghost of a breath there, until Keith is shaking apart.

“Shiro,” he whispers, and immediately those eyes are on him again. Shiro’s hand has come up to his neck, large and warm as his thumb presses against the jut of Keith’s jaw.

“Yeah.” Shiro is quiet and almost reverend in the way he is looking at Keith, like he is the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen. Keith feels the twists and turns in his stomach, spreads his legs a little when Shiro’s knee bumps against his thigh.

“Kiss me,” he murmurs. “Please?”

Shiro smiles, brilliantly, and gives Keith what he wants.

There is no hesitation to it, and Keith pushes a hand into Shiro’s hair, tugging gently as he sucks on Shiro’s tongue. He doesn’t have the capacity to take this slow, wants Shiro too badly—the moan that reverberates through him as he yanks a little harder.

“So good,” Shiro pants as he momentarily breaks the kiss, before moving to lick Keith’s neck. “Fuck, you taste good.”

“Yeah?” Keith groans back, finds Shiro’s large thigh press between his own so he has something to grind up against. “Keep kissing me then, _fuck_.”

Shiro laughs on the way back up, tells him, “You’re eager.”

“Oh, fuck off,” he smirks. “Like you aren’t.”

“You’re also a little drunk.” Shiro is still teasing, but he does angle his hips away from Keith. “Maybe we should do this another time?”

“Sex?” Keith inquires. He tries not to pout—he’s rock-hard and certain Shiro can feel it. Certain that Shiro is, too.

“Yeah.” Shiro doesn’t send him off yet—instead he cups Keith’s jaw and looks at him for a long moment, smiling like he likes what he’s seeing. Keith watches Shiro’s eyes roam his face, lips neck and jaw, and he’s not used to being told _no_ but maybe Shiro is right.

“I’m tired anyway,” he states.

“Too tired for another kiss?” Shiro’s lips brush his cheek again and Keith’s eyes close. He turns into the touch, loves the way Shiro’s fingers and mouth work together—tingles run down his spine and up the base of his skull.

His voice drops to a low murmur when he confesses, “Not quite that tired.” Shiro presses their mouths together in a well-practised motion, like this is part of a routine—except it isn’t, and the kiss still steals away Keith’s breath.

Finally, Shiro kisses him one last time before drawing Keith into a tight hug.

He melts into Shiro’s body, big and strong and all there for him—he doesn’t even really miss the sex right now.

Maybe this is the moment someone else would have said _I love you_. Keith doesn’t; he’s not in love with Shiro, after all. He does feel warm and sleepy, though, wishes that he could crawl into bed with Shiro and spend the night there.

Instead he holds on tight until Shiro pries him away.

“Come on,” he tells Keith. “We have an early day tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” he says. He’s not sure if they do—he’s not sure whether Shiro knows their schedule either, but if he doesn’t leave now, he’s not going to be leaving at all.

“Yeah,” Shiro echoes. “Sweet dreams, Keith.”

“Sleep well.” The words stutter out, suddenly awkward, although Shiro doesn’t appear to notice. He only kisses Keith’s cheek and squeezes his hand before Keith manages to step away, stumbling out of the door, light-headed from the alcohol and from the kiss.

* * *

> [23:04] _K. Kogane_ : are you still in the lounge
> 
> [23:04] _K. Kogane_ : ?
> 
> [23:05] _T. Shirogane_ : Why are you asking?
> 
> [23:05] _K. Kogane_ : you know why
> 
> [23:06] _T. Shirogane_ : Hmm… You want to play a video game?
> 
> [23:06] _K. Kogane_ : right now i’d be useless playing games, you know i’d just sit in your lap and grind my ass down against your dick until youre hard
> 
> [23:06] _T. Shirogane_ : Wow I mean
> 
> [23:07] _T. Shirogane_ : Please tell me more?
> 
> [23:08] _K. Kogane_ : i’d not let you touch my dick but you know i’m already hard for your touch, i’d want you to focus on your game first until you win but to make it more difficult i would whisper in your ear about you sucking me off
> 
> [23:08] _T. Shirogane_ : Holy shit, Keith
> 
> [23:08] _T. Shirogane_ : What would you say??
> 
> [23:09] _K. Kogane_ : that i know you think my dick is pretty and that i’ve seen you look at it and i know you wanna put your mouth on it especially after you already got a little taste
> 
> [23:10] _K. Kogane_ : that i think you’d take it slow and savour it putting your mouth on the tip first and i know i’d have to fight not to come because you’re probably great at it
> 
> [23:12] _T. Shirogane_ : Well, why don’t you come find out?

* * *

Shiro stands behind him as he undresses Keith, letting his clothes drop to the floor piece by piece. Keith allows him to, baring his neck so Shiro can kiss the sensitive skin there. Even through his underwear, Shiro’s dick presses hard against his ass and Keith grinds back. Shiro moves his hands up and down his chest, down to his hips and thighs, carefully avoiding his cock and leaving Keith to groan in frustration.

“Let’s get you to the bed first,” Shiro mutters, although he makes no move.

“You promised—” he cuts off on another moan as Shiro gently bites down, his fingers teasing down the length of Keith’s cock. “Shit, Shiro,” he swats away the hand, “not yet!”

“Yeah, sorry.” Keith can hear the laugh in Shiro’s voice and snorts, rolling his eyes now that Shiro won’t see. “How do you want to do this?”

And Keith has thought about this, extensively. About sitting on the edge of the bed with Shiro kneeling between his legs, about being pushed up against the wall on or off his feet, about laying back and pushing his fingers into Shiro’s hair, watching his dick disappear into his mouth.

“Like the first time,” he decides. Memories of Shiro licking the tip of his dick feature his fantasies embarrassingly frequently—at times even when he is with Shiro. Shiro raises his eyebrows but nods, clambering onto the bed and shifting so that he is sitting propped up against the wall again.

There is no awkward fumbling with their clothes now, although Keith takes a moment to cup Shiro’s cock through his underwear after he’s in his lap.

“So you wanna be up on your knees?” Shiro asks and Keith nods.

Before he does that, he moves in for a kiss. Kissing Shiro is always a delight—gentle after they’ve gotten off or when they’re getting started—but the way he kisses when he’s hard remains Keith’s favourite. There’s a neediness to it that sets something in Keith on fire until he needs to grind his dick down against Shiro’s and Shiro has to stop him with a hand on his hip.

“Shit,” Keith mutters, wiping at his spit-slick lips and groaning. “I think I need a sec.”

Their private running joke is that Keith can’t control himself, and it’s deeply based in the truth. Sometimes, Keith thinks it’s more true than Shiro realises, and other times he thinks Shiro must know—although he tells Keith repeatedly that for all his jokes, he doesn’t mind that he gets into it so much, so intensely, that he gets off in no time at all.

Shiro hums, looking contemplative for a moment before he says, “Maybe you should get up on your knees, anyway.”

“If you want me to come all over you in five seconds,” Keith shoots back.

Shiro sounds confident when he tells him, “No, you won’t.”

He helps Keith up, his hands firm around Keith’s upper thighs. Keith expected him to move in right away but Shiro doesn’t, instead letting his breath ghost over Keith’s dick and chuckling when it twitches in response.

“Shut up,” Keith gasps, pushing hips forward. His dick rubs against Shiro’s kiss-swollen lips and smoothly shaven cheek, leaving traces of precome on his skin.

“Mm, were you gonna make me?” Shiro teases again, this time dragging his open mouth along Keith’s dick.

He shudders as he watches Shiro ghost his mouth over the hard skin until he’s shaking with want. Shiro’s fingers knead into the meat of his thighs and gently pull him closer and finally Keith relents. With one arm braced against the wall and his forehead leaning against his arm, he grabs his dick and guides it to Shiro’s open, waiting mouth.

Even the view is nearly too much, overwhelming. He can tell Shiro is eager for it, his eyes big and turned up at Keith as he leans in and closes his lips around Keith.

The first thing that registers with Keith is the hot wetness of it, all-encompassing and so good he wants to thrust into it. Then Shiro starts to suck, gently, and he almost chokes on his own spit with how good it feels, liquid pleasure running through his veins and melting his spine.

“Shit,” he curses again and Shiro hums, slowly pulling Keith in so he slides in deeper. His cheeks are hollowed, and he’s closed his eyes, his tongue working along Keith’s frenulum. It’s an onslaught of feeling and Keith wants to last but he knows he won’t.

Not when Shiro, the leader of Voltron, looks this happy sucking _his_ dick.

“Shiro,” he garbles, reaching down for Shiro’s shoulder. He’s seen enough porn to know a warning is in order here, that he can’t assume Shiro will want a mouthful of his load—but words are difficult when he’s this close. “Shiro, please, I’m gonna—”

Instead of allowing him to pull back, Shiro keeps him close, his hands supporting Keith who is certain he’d have fallen over again if Shiro hadn’t.

He heaves out a dry sob when he comes, sees the base of his dick twitch as come pulses out and the way Shiro swallows reflexively, drinking all of it down. Keith needs to close his eyes then, focuses on staying upright as he empties his load down Shiro’s throat while little sounds keep escaping his throat whenever he feels Shiro’s tongue brush sensitive nerves.

He wouldn’t be able to stay upright if it weren’t for Shiro helping him, and it’s only when he’s starting to soften in Shiro’s mouth that Shiro lets him go, slowly pulling off his dick and grinning up at Keith with lips that are swollen red.

Keith shudders as Shiro helps him sit down and reaches for Shiro’s cock.

The head is poking out from under the waistband, leaking against his flat stomach, and Shiro’s eyes roll back when Keith pulls the elastic out of the way and curls his fingers around him, slowly stroking while squeezing Shiro’s balls with his other hand, still trapped in the underwear.

“Fuck,” Shiro groans, his thighs tensing up under Keith’s as he spills over his stomach.

It’s easy, quick, and Keith half wishes that he could have sucked off Shiro too—but there is pride in knowing that he was the reason Shiro was this riled up in the first place. He’s still catching his breath with his eyes closed when Keith tucks away his dick and finds a corner of blanket to wipe his hands off.

“That was—really good,” he tells Shiro, who nods. “I’m gonna go clean up.”

His legs are still wobbly and his dick feels weird, the saliva drying distinctly different from the semen he’s used to. He runs a towel over himself anyway before returning to Shiro with wads of toilet paper so he can soak up the worst of the mess.

“I’ll suck you off next time,” he promises, dressing himself.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Shiro tells him. The words come slow, low and gruff, and Keith’s dick twitches in response. They haven’t done this more than once a day but he doesn’t think he’d be averse to that—waiting around with kisses until he’s hard again, ready to go, and he doesn’t think Shiro would mind helping at all.

Instead he says, “Good night, Shiro.”

“Good night, Keith.”

* * *

The first two days after the Trial with the Blades of Marmora aren’t so bad. They have Antok’s information and the weblum to find, and more than that, the shock hasn’t truly set in—Keith manages to make it through the days and ignore the remarks, ignore Allura’s glares.

But after Beta Traz, ignoring the increasingly hostile mood becomes more difficult. The comments towards his Galra heritage are more frequent and more cutting. Allura actively avoids him, turning the other way when she sees Keith walk down a corridor, or getting up and walking away when he joins the dining table. He knows Coran struggles and Lance and Hunk keep running their mouths; Pidge tries to deal with it in the scientific way, but if Keith has to hear one more thing about dominant and recessive Galra genes, he’s going to run away screaming.

Although Shiro is the only person not treating Keith any differently over his heritage, maybe because he was at the base with Keith, Keith finds himself shutting down their contact as well. Just to be safe. Just to be careful.

He doesn’t want to second-guess himself constantly. He doesn’t want to feel like people distrust him, and he can’t be sure that Shiro isn’t one of them—Shiro may only be putting on an act. Paranoia festers in him, and he knows it’s not unwarranted. Not entirely. Keith remembers school, he remembers the foster home and the Garrison. The way some kids acted like Allura, spitting on him as he walked by so he’d have to run to the bathroom and wash his hair. The teachers looking on, apparently helpless even in their position of power, not because they didn’t give a shit but because their comfort was more important. The comments he’d hear in passing from people who didn’t mean to be mean, the people who were actively trying to be nice and still made him feel like shit because of the implications their comments were laced with.

He also remembers the few kids that pretended to be his friends; that invited him to a birthday party or two and laughed, and then dropped him, leaving him to sink like a brick in water once they knew his weaknesses, knew how to equip those against him.

He’s learned his lesson. He’d rather stay alone, safe in a place he can watch his own back and know he won’t get stabbed.

Dealing with it alone is bad, still. He knows that his mum’s a rebel; he knows that she’s one of the _good_ guys—but he understands why the other Paladins act the way they do. In the mirror, he tries to spot the Galra traits—maybe it’s the angle of his jaw, the way his incisors have always been a little pointier; maybe the colour of his eyes or his hair, or the speed at which his fingernails grow.

Maybe it’s his strength, his emotions that he’ll admit are volatile at the best of times but tries to reign in, even when he’s on his own and hurting so bad that it feels like someone reached into his chest to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze all the life out of him.

He wonders if that is all he deserves.

* * *

Shiro’s stopped by often enough that Keith recognises the distinct rap-tap-tap pattern of knuckles on his door.

He’s holed up under a mound of blankets, pretending to not exist; his datapad was pinging with messages so incessantly that Keith first muted it, and when the screen kept lighting up, he simply turned it off.

“Keith?” Shiro asks. “Are you okay?”

He doesn’t want to respond. He wants to say _no_ , he wants to say _go away_. More than anything else, he wants Shiro to hug him, but that only makes him hurt more so he shoves down the thought no matter how comforting it might be if he did that.

“Keith, I know you’re in there.”

Keith bites down on his lip in the hopes of staying quiet, pulling the blankets further over his head. He wants to plug his ears with his fingers and hide from the world, but there is no hiding from his brain and today was a rough day.

“Shit, Keith.” Keith hears Shiro shuffle around in front of the door—he wonders if he’d go as far as breaking the lock panel. His prosthetic could probably do it. “I’m worried about you, okay? You’ve been looking—” Silence for a few moments. “You look tired. You look _sad_ , and I hate that you don’t talk to me.”

Shiro’s vulnerability makes Keith ache, his eyes burning. He knows Shiro always treated him with respect, that he was the one who saw potential in Keith when no one else did; there is a reason he never gave up on Shiro in return.

With shaking legs, he gets up.

“Let me in,” Shiro says, despondent. “Just—let me help you. You’re my friend.”

Keith swallows away the strange, rising feeling in his stomach, the nerves and the worries, and opens the door. He knows he looks like trash, with his hair uncombed and his shirt three days ripe on his frame.

“Hey,” he says. Even his voice is rough with disuse.

“Thank god.” Shiro steps into the room and pulls him into a hug that nearly leaves Keith breathless, like he was worried Keith hurt himself. 

“I’m fine,” he mutters into Shiro’s chest even as something inside him shatters, wrapping his arms around Shiro’s waist as his throat constricts and hurts. Shiro’s hand rubs up and down his back and tears prickle in his eyes, blinks them away because this is not the place nor time.

“It’s alright if you’re not,” Shiro sighs, pressing his face into Keith’s hair. “Being part alien isn’t easy.” The metal of Shiro’s Galra arm presses gentle to the base of his neck, rubbing in soothing circles.

“I—” Keith stutters, choking on his words. “I hate that I’m—I hate, I hate it, but my mum can’t be evil, she’s a Blade—”

Shiro is patient as he stumbles through the things he needs to say, has to say, because Shiro’s here now and he’s listening, and even if he’s going to turn his back to Keith later, he needs to get this off his chest.

And Shiro offered. He’s never judged Keith unfairly before.

“But now I know why I felt so out of place all my life,” he confesses. “It makes sense, why I feel so much better up here. Or did, maybe.”

“Allura will come around,” Shiro assures him with a quiet whisper, letting Keith go from the hug with a teasing tug on his hair, getting him to look up. “Lance is being an idiot as usual, but he doesn’t hate you, and Hunk and Pidge are dealing with this in their own way.”

“And you?” Keith mutters, refusing to meet Shiro’s eyes.

Shiro’s finger—Galra, again—lifts his chin. “I’ll always be here for you, Keith. Even if you were all Galra. Do you remember who saved me?” Keith nods, shrugs, because it doesn’t feel like such a big thing. “I know you’re a good man, Keith.”

“That makes one of us,” he mutters.

“Oh.” For the first time, Keith thinks Shiro sounds disappointed—but when he hazards a glance up, he only sees sadness. He’s never been fond of pity directed at him, and he knows Shiro wouldn’t do this on purpose, but he seems genuinely upset at Keith’s comment. “Because of—what?” he asks.

“Well.” Keith shrugs. “They—we, I guess, still rule most of the Universe. Subjugate peoples. Extort them. Kill—”

“Not you.” Shiro shakes his head. “The Blades wouldn’t agree with that either.”

“Yeah, well.” He remembers the base, the sparse quarters and the strict practise regime, fighting and strategizing. He remembers the Garrison and struggling with all those things, except knowing where to punch other people, faster and fiercer and meaner. “You saw my trial.”

“I also saw how much you care about me,” Shiro tells him. He’s dragging Keith with him, down onto the bed, onto his chest into a full-body hug. His arms wrap around Keith, keep him steady and close as Keith settles against Shiro’s wider, taller, _better_ body. Forgiving and human.

“I think it’s because you were already on the ship,” Keith mutters. He doesn’t know how much Shiro saw, and he doesn’t know what to think of it himself. He wonders if they could have conjured his mother, his father instead—and suspects it’s not beyond the realm of possibilities. “It made sense.”

“It’s okay,” Shiro laughs quietly. “You don’t have to explain.”

And even now, Keith’s head keeps working. He can’t close his eyes without seeing Galra, he’s dreamt about being Zarkon’s son and then his father, about changing into a yellow-eyed monster that people should be afraid of.

“I can’t stop thinking,” he finally confesses, keeping his eyes tightly shut against Shiro’s chest. “I hate it.”

“Yeah?” Shiro hums. “Anything I can do to help?”

He knows there are things Shiro could do, and everything about the situation feels strange, too soft, too intimate. The contrast to his feelings, at war deep inside of him, is massive. A breach that he needs to build a bridge across if he ever wants to come to terms with any of this—whatever _this_ may be, because right now, Keith doesn’t know.

“I don’t want to talk,” he confides. “And I don’t want to think.”

“Do you want to stay here?” Shiro asks, big hand rubbing up and down Keith’s back until he’s shivering, distracted by the touch. Keith’s body responds easily, Pavlovian, his heart kicking up a fuss as his blood redistributes itself. For the first time in months, he’s embarrassed by his own response. “You like that?”

“You know I do.” The words come out harsher than he intended, his hips snapping against Shiro’s groin when Shiro grabs a handful of his ass. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Shiro mutters, breath hot on Keith’s skin as Keith pushes himself up so he can lean down, lean in for a kiss. Shiro’s thumb caresses his jaw as he goes for it, a make-out session without any of the preamble they usually perform. Keith tries to draw moans from Shiro, working his way down a list of things he knows work (biting down on his lip, sucking Shiro’s tongue into his mouth) until Shiro flips them over.

“Fuck,” Keith groans as Shiro’s legs presses between his thighs. He crosses his legs, tightening the space as he grinds against the hard muscle.

“Still thinking?” Shiro asks, brushing his nose over Keith’s cheek and shoving at him with his leg, drawing another moan from Keith.

“Not as much,” he pants. “Think you can do better, though.” A blowjob, he hopes. That may have been his favourite, and he wants to last longer this time.

“Yeah,” Shiro whispers against his lips. Keith thinks he’ll get another kiss but instead Shiro sits up, tells him, “Undress for me.” Shiro disappears into the bathroom and returns moments later, Keith’s lube in hand. “I was thinking—” he mutters, eyes appreciatively trailing over Keith’s naked body, and Keith shivers, “—that you might like this. You don’t have to, you can say no, but.”

Shiro shrugs and Keith wants to tell him he’ll try anything at least once, if it’s with Shiro. That might be coming on a bit strong though so instead he nods, mutters, “What is it?”

A big metal arm nudges at his knee until Keith spreads his legs a little wider. Shiro trails two fingers down the base of his dick and then down, over his balls, pressing against the sensitive skin behind them before landing on his hole. Immediately, Keith’s entire body breaks out in a flush; this feels more intimate, more illicit somehow, than Shiro sucking his dick.

“Just fingers,” Shiro clarifies. “When we talked about getting off hands-free…”

“Oh.” His breath hitches in his chest and he spreads his legs a little wider, curious. He’s tried this a few times by himself, but the angle was too awkward to work in more than his fingertips while simultaneously pulling on his dick. “Yeah,” he says.

“I just wanna make you feel good,” Shiro mutters, popping the cap from the bottle. He sits comfortably, one leg curled up under the other, dangling off the bed, still wearing his clothes.

“You can.” _Please do_ , he thinks.

The first touch is strange, cold and wet and making him grimace. With a couple of deep breaths, he relaxes into the sensation as Shiro starts to wriggle his middle finger inside. He’s taking it slow, and the stretch is barely there, none of the burn Keith felt when he tried it himself—maybe because Shiro is using ample lube.

Shiro adds a second finger much in the same way and this time Keith can feel the stretch of his muscle, strange and unfamiliar still but somehow a direct connection to his dick, twitching against his stomach.

“Like that?” he asks Keith, and a little dazed, Keith nods, gasps. He’s moving his fingers in slow fucking motions, curling up inside of Keith, and he knows what Shiro is doing, what he’s trying to find, but even this is good enough that Keith wants more. The metal fingers fuck him with a delicious stretch and he closes his eyes, imagining that this is foreplay—that Shiro is actually going to fuck him soon, the stretch of his ass around Shiro’s dick, the tightness, how good it must feel—

He reaches down to touch his cock and finds his fingers interlaced with Shiro’s before he can get there, Shiro shushing him. “Hang on,” he whispers, pulling out his fingers and nudging at Keith’s hip until he gets the hint, rolling to his front.

The sheets are soft against his dick and he rolls his hips down, spreading his legs again so Shiro can slide his fingers back in. The double stimulation feels even better, and then Shiro curls his fingers and Keith’s hips jolt up.

“Oh shit,” he groans, burying his face in his pillow.

Shiro hums, stroking his free hand down Keith’s back. “You okay?”

“Feels—weird.” His voice comes out strained, too little air forced through his vocal chords. “Warm. Tingly, but a bit like I need to piss.”

“Relax,” Shiro tells him. “You’ll be fine, just means I’ve got the right place.”

Then his fingers curl into Keith again, more insistent this time, and the same feeling rolls through Keith’s belly. He can’t stop the moan that tears itself from his lungs, leaving him breathless and achingly hard, writhing into the sheets.

“You look amazing like this,” Shiro tells him and Keith shivers. There’s a hand on his hip but Keith ignores it in favour of rubbing his cock into the sheets some more, pushing his ass back against Shiro’s hand. He gives Keith short breaks before pressing against his prostate again, this time keeping the pressure light. “C’mon, hips up.”

“No,” he groans in response. The sheets feel fantastic against his cock, better somehow when Shiro is fingering him, and he wants to drown in this feeling, let it wash over him until it consumes him entirely.

“Yeah,” Shiro says. There’s a soft touch to his ass, and it takes a moment before Keith realises that’s Shiro’s mouth, that Shiro just kissed his butt and is now gently digging his teeth into the meat. “Fuck, you are taking my fingers so good—and I’m going to make you forget everything else.” An unsteady breath. “ _Up_.”

Shiro helps him, a steadying hand on his hip as Keith pushes his hips up in the air. He’s aware of the tremble in his legs, in his back, and this time when Shiro moves his fingers inside of him there’s nothing to push back against, just his dick hanging heavy between his legs and occasionally twitching. A gush of wetness rushes out as Shiro continues to fuck him with two fingers, a trail of precome dripping down onto the sheets that he can’t do anything about.

“Shiro,” he whimpers. He wants more, needs more, wants a hand around his dick to chase his orgasm.

“Fuck, you should see yourself,” Shiro says. “So good for me. Is there anything you want?”

“More,” Keith moans, squeezing his eyes shut against the pillow. “More, please. More.”

“More of what?” Shiro’s voice is gentle, and he’s rubbing a hand over Keith’s stomach, down and down until he trails his fingers over the sensitive skin of his thighs, always circumventing his dick.

“ _More_ ,” is all he manages, because it’s the truth—right now he doesn’t care. “Wanna, need to—”

“I know, I know,” Shiro shushes him. “You can, any time you want to. Do you want me to use another finger? Need me to move faster?”

“Anything,” Keith gasps as Shiro presses down more firmly. “Right there, yeah, _yeah_.”

“Yeah?” He hears the breathless laughter on Shiro’s voice. “I’m sure you can get off like this, though. You’re doing so good, Keith, you look so pretty.” He shivers again, his entire body trembling with pleasure at Shiro’s fingers, his words. “You like me telling you that?” He nods. “That you’re pretty? That you deserve to feel this good?”

He can feel himself fall apart at Shiro’s words, taken apart bit by bit, fingers digging into the blankets as pleasure starts to swell deep inside of him.

“Oh yeah, you do,” Shiro whispers, close enough to Keith that he can feel hot breath against his skin. “I’ve thought about this, you know. Spreading you open on my fingers, seeing how well you’d take them, and you are, you’re doing so well, and you’re feeling so good, aren’t you?”

And he is, he’s feeling good enough that his cock can’t stop leaking and he feels every hair on his head, his body so sensitive to the touch he can feel every square inch of cool air. Of Shiro’s soft sweatpants and the heat radiating from his thighs, two fingers fucking him and his other hand on his outer thigh.

“Please,” he moans, “please, please.”

The fingers inside him move faster, press harder, and the pressure in his groin swells, expands, burns through his veins like it’s a hot day’s sun. He can’t tell from where exactly his pleasure germinates or to where it extends, only that it is growing in immenseness. It swallows his breath and his thoughts until he’s a supernova on the brink of extinction, and then he’s tumbling over the edge. Even that is slow, gradual, so he’s moaning before he’s spilling and then his dick is twitching, pleasure washing over him in waves of liquid gold as he writhes through it, sweating and unable to stay still, to stay quiet.

Shiro keeps up the massage until his dick stops pulsing, until he shivers away from the touch because he’s so sensitive, hips twitching.

All he feels is the fabric against his cheek, his arms, his knees; Shiro’s trousers and hands as he pulls his fingers out. Keith whimpers again at the empty feeling, muscles clenching involuntarily—and already he’s wishing Shiro would have kept them in. Instead, he helps Keith lay down, careful to keep him out of the wet spot by pulling the blankets off and throwing them to the floor.

“I’ll get clean blankets,” Shiro whispers, rubbing the fingers of his human hand through Keith’s hair. “I’ll be right back, hang on.”

Keith closes his eyes and rides out another shiver, his body still acclimatising to the lack of stimulation. When Shiro returns, he’s carrying a blanket that he drapes over Keith’s feet; with a wet washcloth he washes away the lube between Keith’s legs and the drying come on his stomach, using a soft towel to dry him afterwards.

He’s too weak to walk. His body feels like it’s been pulled apart like taffy and only now relearning how to exist as a solid mass, but it means he’s been free of thought for—a while, he’s not sure how long. He’s exhausted but more satisfied than he has been in a long time, a full-body relaxation that he gives in to.

He wants to press up against Shiro, snuggle into his arms and fall asleep that way—but he doesn’t have the words to ask.

Shiro does lay down with him until Keith stops shivering. “Are you okay?” he asks quietly and Keith nods, already nodding off. “I need to get back to my room but—I’m here for you, always. Don’t let this get you down.”

“Yeah,” Keith mutters, closing his eyes.

He feels Shiro nod and resists the urge to tighten his arms around his waist, keep him close, breathe in Shiro’s scent a little longer and fall asleep that way. Instead he listens to Shiro pull his shoes back on, his soles on the cool floor, the door sliding open and then shut.

He keeps his eyes closed and pretends Shiro is still with him, wrapping his arms around bunched up blankets that still smell warm, like home, until he’s too tired to fight sleep any longer.

* * *

> [20:31] _T. Shirogane_ : I found something
> 
> [20:31] _K. Kogane_ : oooh do tell (show?)
> 
> [20:32] _K. Kogane_ : unless its nasty ofcourse
> 
> [20:32] _K. Kogane:_ heh
> 
> [20:33] _T. Shirogane_ : You can tell me about your Internet traumas some other time ;)
> 
> [20:33] _T. Shirogane_ : These are basically… Altean cat videos, I think?
> 
> [20:34] _T. Shirogane_ : They look like cats but with three tails and coloured strikes in their fur, anyway
> 
> [20:35] _K. Kogane_ : okay yes you can show me then ive missed cat videos
> 
> [20:35] _K. Kogane_ : i thought you found porn
> 
> >> _T. Shirogane_ _sent a file (54 MB received 20:35)_
> 
> [20:35] _T. Shirogane_ : I’m starting to think that porn either doesn’t exist at all or it’s been hidden away behind some lock
> 
> >> _T. Shirogane_ _sent a file (98 MB received 20:36)_
> 
> _ >> T. Shirogane sent a file (32 MB received 20:36)_
> 
> [20:36] _K. Kogane_ : did you even look?
> 
> [20:36] _T. Shirogane_ : Do you want the honest answer or not?
> 
> [20:36] _T. Shirogane_ : You should also really watch the cat videos, they’re actually cute!
> 
> [20:37] _K. Kogane_ : is the honest answer that you havent felt the need to look for sexy videos anymore?
> 
> [20:37] _T. Shirogane_ : Maybe…
> 
> [20:37] _K. Kogane_ : because i don’t blame you
> 
> [20:38] _K. Kogane_ : infact i understand :)
> 
> [20:39] _T. Shirogane_ : Good :)
> 
> [20:43] _K. Kogane_ : these videos are super cute wow
> 
> [20:43] _K. Kogane_ : cant see wtf they are but their cute
> 
> [20:44] _T. Shirogane_ : They’re* and yes they are! I wish we had some more pets on board.
> 
> [20:45] _K. Kogane_ : well we could steal alluras mice or hang out w kaltenekcer
> 
> [20:47] _T. Shirogane_ : Good point, good point…

* * *

“Oh, shit,” Shiro groans, spreading his legs wider and throwing back his head.

Keith sucks harder, focusing on breathing through his mouth. His jaw aches and he’s harder than he thought he’d be; his fingers are curled around the base of Shiro’s dick and wet with his own spit.

“Like that, yeah, fuck, that’s _perfect_.”

Shiro’s stroking his fingers through Keith’s hair, a gentle presence pushing it out of the way. Keith is certain that it is so Shiro can see him, can see his dick disappear into Keith’s mouth, and he moans around Shiro’s hard flesh.

Bitter precome leaks into his mouth and he tries to swallow it away, more saliva slicking the way. Shiro moans again, the muscles in his hips tensing under the arm Keith keeps slung over them, but he doesn’t buck up.

“I’m so close,” he bites out. “Keith, shit, baby—Keith,” and this time the tug at Keith’s hair sends sharp pleasure down his spine as he slides off his mouth.

Some of Shiro’s come lands on his lips anyway, more on his cheeks and down his neck. He feels it splatter as he looks up at Shiro, catching his breath.

Shiro is gorgeous like this, with his eyes closed and his hips still tilted up in the air, his wet dick now laying in the groove of his hipbone, twitching feebly as Keith runs his fingers along the underside. He looked stressed and tired all day, and Keith takes pride in helping Shiro relax this well.

The bonus is that it was hot as hell, too. He still tastes Shiro’s dick on his tongue and he wants more—he wants to hear Shiro say his name again, broken and breathless, he wants to hear Shiro call him _baby_ again.

“Shiro.” His voice cracks on a groan and Shiro’s eyes blink open, taking one look at him and pulling Keith in.

He kisses him before dragging his tongue across Keith’s skin, cleaning him up. Keith is shaking with it but waits for Shiro’s touch, barely patient enough.

Once Shiro’s come is gone from his face, Shiro makes Keith fuck the tight circle of his fist. He’s on all fours over Shiro, telling him, “Yeah, come on, Keith, just like this, perfect, perfect,” and with _baby, Keith_ still ringing in Keith’s ear, he spills over Shiro’s stomach with a load moan.

The clean-up is quick, like always. The corridor is empty when Keith makes his way to his own room, and his own bed feels uncharacteristically cold and empty when he crawls under the sheets.

* * *

> [08:10] K. Holt: Hey
> 
> [08:10] K. Holt: Firstly, I need you to know I wasn’t going to tell you, but it feels weird not to (although I know it’s none of my business). Secondly, it doesn’t make me think of you any different.
> 
> [08:10] K. Holt: It’s just that I saw you exit Shiro’s room last night, and let’s just say that I have an older brother and have been with friends with Lance for some time now.
> 
> [08:11] K. Holt: You don’t need to respond, I just thought that letting you know I saw that would be the proper way to do. I haven’t told any of the others and I also won’t.
> 
> [09:01] _K. Kogane_ : thanks for telling me
> 
> [09:02] K. Holt: No problem

* * *

“Do you think we— _see_ each other too often?” Keith asks.

He’s pulled Shiro into the privacy of his room, the lights on board of the ship still mimicking daylight. Shiro frowns and Keith wants to smooth out the wrinkles with his thumb before promptly ignoring the urge.

“Honestly? I don’t know,” he tells Keith after a moment’s hesitation, looking away. “Do you? Do you want to stop?”

Keith doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t—but he’s been wondering if getting each other off on an almost daily basis isn’t too much.

“No,” he mutters. He understands why Shiro isn’t sure, when they’re with each other most nights. Shiro still deserves to know, though. He takes a deep breath. “Pidge knows.” Shiro freezes, his expression closing off.

“What do you mean?”

“She messaged me this morning,” he tells Shiro. At least he now knows that Pidge hasn’t talked to Shiro as well, although he’s not sure whether that makes the situation more, or less awkward. “She saw me leave your room last night.”

“Right,” Shiro nods.

Keith can see he tries to keep his composure, and he can see right through the facade. His shoulders hunch forward; he scratches the back of his neck and shifts his feet every couple of seconds.

“She’s not going to tell anybody,” he assures Shiro. “I think she just—wanted us to know. So we can keep it on the down low from everybody else, I guess, or—I don’t know. Hide it.”

He watches as Shiro takes a deep breath, rubbing at his eyes. Shiro’s sudden restlessness, his discomfort, twist Keith’s guts into something awful that he can’t name but feels an awful lot like rejection. He realises he didn’t expect Shiro to shut down, to be this uncomfortable finding out that other people know.

“We can stop,” he mutters. “If you want.”

“We don’t—well, maybe not _stop_.” Shiro bites down on his lip. Takes a second to think. “Be more careful. Take it easy. A short break, maybe, see how that goes.”

“Yeah,” Keith finds himself agreeing, even as a cavity carves itself into his stomach where the words reverberate. “I guess so.” He’s not sure where the sudden pain is coming from and he doesn’t want to dwell on it, instead swallowing against his suddenly dry mouth.

“It’s—nothing against you,” Shiro shakes his head, reaching out for Keith. His arm folds around Keith’s waist, pulling him close. Keith thinks he’s smelling his hair which is a little weird but fills him with a strange sense of warmth anyway and he relaxes into the hug. “Or against us. And we don’t have to _stop_. Just nothing, for a little while.”

“A little while,” Keith repeats.

“Maybe a few weeks.” Shiro’s thumb runs across his spine and Keith wants to press closer, wants to bury himself inside Shiro somehow because even this doesn’t feel like it’s enough—not when Shiro’s telling him they can’t.

“Okay,” he finds himself agreeing. “If you think that’s best.”

Shiro remains quiet. He just holds Keith a little tighter, a little longer, before letting him go and pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek. The softness of the gesture steals Keith’s breath, and he traces his fingers over the touch when Shiro is gone, wondering if this is going to be the last of it.

* * *

“No!” Keith screams, squirming away as Lance tries to tickle him.

“You’re cheating!” Lance shouts back, trying to grab Keith’s controller. They’ve been playing _Super Space Bros VII_ for the past half hour, and Keith has been obliterating Lance.

He’s also definitely _been_ cheating, although Lance doesn’t have confirmation. Pidge’s told him about some cheat codes and Keith doesn’t technically _need_ them to beat Lance—but it’s kind of funny to see him this upset.

Pidge seems to think so too, pretending she’s focused on her laptop although she’s trying to hide her smile in her sleeve.

“Can I play too?” Shiro asks as he strolls into the room.

“Yep, here you go,” Lance huffs, throwing his controller in Shiro’s direction. He catches it easily and drops down on the couch beside Keith.

Shiro smiles at him and Keith feels his stomach swoop, thinks that he wants to lean in and kiss him gently, cuddle up to Shiro and continue gaming. His mouth goes dry, and he feels his face flush as he turns back to the screen because these aren’t things he can think about—not things they are to each other, or things they can be.

He lets Shiro win the first game while Lance vents his frustration to Pidge and Allura, moving to Coran when the girls grow tired of him. He puts effort into the second game, this time without a cheat code, and it’s a close call but he wins.

Then Shiro whispers in his ear, “Turn on the codes,” and Keith nods.

With some button-mashing he wins, although it’s a lot less fun when Shiro only laughs rather than Lance’s borderline violent frustration.

Then Shiro shifts a little closer, pushing their bodies flush together, and Keith shivers into the contact. His body is livewire, attuned entirely to Shiro’s presence, and when Shiro wraps his arm around Keith to continue playing like that he sinks against his chest and resolves not to think about it too hard.

* * *

He is shaking when he exits Red.

She’s banged up pretty bad, the damage clear as day now that she’s back under the bright lights of her bay. Keith’s back aches from the impact of a Galra trooper crashing into his side.

Pidge is first to reach him, and then her arms are wrapped around his waist and holding him tight, keeping him up. The others file in soon after; Shiro is last, with a slight limp. He smiles at Keith and holds up his hand, the signal that he’s okay.

It doesn’t matter—that call was too close. They escaped by the skin of their teeth. Allura hugs him, seeks him out, like she’d have regretted not doing so sooner if he hadn’t made it; he leans into her before she hands him off to Shiro.

His ears still ring, his vision is blurry, and he clings to Shiro.

He doesn’t want to say the words—not _I thought I was going to die_. _I was sure of_ it. Shiro’s hand pats his back before pulling him close in a hug; even without helmets, Shiro can’t bury his face in Keith’s neck like he tries to before resting their heads together.

“Come on,” he mutters to Keith.

His legs are Jell-O and now that the adrenalin is wearing off, he feels the soreness in his chest, in his neck, in his legs. He’s not sure if all of that comes from his back or if they’re separate injuries; he doesn’t know how _bad_ any of this is, apart from not being paralysed. From being alive.

Shiro walks him down to the Medbay; he needs to get checked for internal bleeding, for major and minor damage that could wreak havoc on him later.

“Bruising,” Shiro mutters, looking at the screen. Keith still can’t read Altean—he hadn’t realised that Shiro somehow learned. The cool metal shifts over his bare stomach, a stark contrast to Shiro’s warm skin. “You sprained your elbow and you’ve got a cracked rib. I don’t think you’ll need a pod.”

He doesn’t mention that their resources for the pods are running low; quintessence crystals are far from easy to come by. Keith would rather spend a few days uncomfortable and aching than use up material they might need _more_ in an emergency later.

Shiro helps him upright and back into a soft shirt. The neck is loose, and the hem reaches to halfway down his thighs, and it takes Keith too long to realise that it must be one of Shiro’s. He can think of Shiro’s reasoning, that it’s because this’ll be easier for Keith to pull on and take off. It _is_ that, it _has_ to be.

And then Shiro walks him to his room after feeding Keith some painkillers and helps him out of his clothes. His fingertips brush Keith’s skin, big areas that he knows will slowly darken into sickly purple-blue bruises over the next few days. Yet, there’s nothing clinical about this, nothing impersonal—Shiro frowns and keeps going like he wants to wash the pain from Keith’s skin with his tender touches.

He doesn’t succeed, of course, but his hands still feel good. He doesn’t tell Shiro to stop—because—because maybe the lingering taste of death will ebb away.

Shiro cups Keith’s face and kisses him, slow and deep, until Keith is half-hard despite his injuries. He doesn’t act on it; he’s too tired, too loopy from the medicine, and Shiro strokes his hair back before pressing a final kiss to his forehead.

“Get some rest, babe,” he tells Keith. “Rest up. We need you back in shape.”

Keith nods, closing his eyes. He’s starting to feel drunk; the pain flows out of his body, washed away by the air circulation in the room. Whenever Shiro isn’t talking, his ears hone in on the hum of the climate control and Shiro’s even breaths.

“C’mon.” Shiro fusses over him, inordinately worried for someone Keith’s saved from the death multiple times. He’s not hurt _that_ bad, but he doesn’t tell Shiro, either.

He likes to feel those hands on his skin.

He likes Shiro by his side.

* * *

Time passes and Keith heals. Well, mostly anyway, although the experience still plays itself out when he’s in bed sometimes—laying in the dark, staring up at the ceiling.

He’s curled up in bed and dozing off when his datapad pings.

> [23:34] _T. Shirogane_ : Hey
> 
> [23:34] _T. Shirogane_ : Are you up? :)
> 
> [23:35] _K. Kogane_ : kinda
> 
> [23:35] _K. Kogane_ : your message kinda woke me up but its ok

Keith can’t blame Shiro for assuming he’d still be awake even as he starts to blink the sleep from his eyes. They’ve had a long day visiting an alien planet and being diplomatic and the weariness of it has settled into his bones—all he’d wanted to do after getting back to the castle was to crawl under his blankets.

> [23:36] _T. Shirogane_ : Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you’d be awake
> 
> [23:36] _T. Shirogane_ :You should go back to sleep!
> 
> [23:37] _K. Kogane_ : why, are you okay?
> 
> [23:38] _T. Shirogane_ : Just tense.
> 
> [23:38] _K. Kogane_ : why?
> 
> [23:38] _T. Shirogane_ : I don’t like being in places the Galra colonised. It brings back memories.
> 
> [23:39] _T. Shirogane_ : But I’ll be okay. Just go sleep.
> 
> [23:40] _K. Kogane_ : i can come over
> 
> [23:40] _K. Kogane_ : sleep there if that helps

There’s no response for long minutes and Keith wonders if he should get up and go check up on Shiro. He’s already sitting up when his door slides open to show Shiro’s silhouette entering the room. His shoulders are slumped down and even in the dark he can see that Shiro is tired too, that he’s too tense to sleep.

“Come here,” he quietly calls out, already shifting over to create space. The fit will be tight, but they can manage, certainly for one night.

“Are you sure?” Shiro asks, tentatively crossing the room.

Keith nods, pulling the sheets back in an invitation. “Yeah, I don’t mind. You can stay here for the night.” That isn’t the entire truth—he’s missed Shiro like mad, even though he’s still right by his side all day every day. He’s missed their quiet moments at night, the intimacy, Shiro’s moans and whimpers and the way he tells Keith he looks good, looks so pretty.

“Thanks,” Shiro mutters as he crawls into bed beside him. They shift around a little until they find a way to fit together that’s not entirely uncomfortable. Shiro’s chest is wide and his muscles are firm under soft skin as he wraps an arm around Keith. His thigh presses between Keith’s legs and he settles in, closing his eyes.

He should have known that sleep doesn’t come as easily with someone else in his bed. He’s feeling too warm but awkward about taking off his pyjamas, and even groggy with sleep his body responds to Shiro’s presence, his dick slowly filling until he’s half-hard and hellbent on ignoring it. They made an agreement he wants to keep.

Instead he focuses on his breathing, keeping it calm and even in the hopes he’ll fool his body into sleep. He’s relaxed, that’s not the issue, but more and more he thinks he’ll need a trip to the bathroom before he can drift off.

He’s so focused on himself that it’s a surprise when he feels Shiro’s chest rumble under his arm as he mutters, “Keith.” His fingers gently trail down Keith’s back and he looks up, just about making out Shiro’s face in the dim blue light that keeps the castle alive.

“What?”

“I don’t think I can get to sleep like this,” Shiro whispers.

“Like what?”

Keith shifts, feels his dick brush up against Shiro’s thigh, and this time Shiro pushes back into him until he can grind down into the pressure.

“This—I’m—shit.” Shiro is breathless and Keith wants more.

In the dark, he pushes himself up to find Shiro’s mouth. Their first kiss is slow and gentle, Shiro’s arm tightening around him and pulling him close. Keith can feel Shiro’s cock hard against his hip and shudders out a gasp, finding a more comfortable position while making out with Shiro.

Pushing under his shirt, Shiro’s hands find the overheated skin of Keith’s back; Keith throws off the blankets because he’s certainly too warm now and kisses Shiro a little harder, biting down on his lower lip before sucking Shiro’s tongue into his mouth.

Shiro moans and another sweet rush of arousal swells in his belly, rolling his hips into Shiro’s a little more forcefully. Their motions are still slow and deliberate, but his shirt has rucked up uncomfortably to his armpits, so Keith helps Shiro pull it off.

Of course, that means he wants Shiro shirtless too. Now that it’s here, he craves the intimacy of skin-on-skin contact and he wants to get closer, run his fingers or his mouth over Shiro’s tight abs. He feels the ridges of Shiro’s scars, the areas where the older ones have flattened out into unnaturally smooth skin, he feels Shiro’s breath hitch at his touch, his hips pushing up against Keith’s.

“Fuck,” Keith mutters into the dark. “I wanna see you, can I?”

The dim yellow light built into the headrest pops on and Shiro stares down at him, eyes big and his cheeks flushed; his lips are swollen, and Keith must look equally dishevelled. He hadn’t realised, in the dark, hadn’t thought that taking things slow would still lead them here.

“Yeah,” Shiro says. His voice is low and rough and already he’s pulling Keith back in. “I’ve thought about this so much,” he mutters into the kiss, against Keith’s lips and tongue. “Missed it.”

Keith hums. He doesn’t know what else to say because Shiro’s said everything. Instead he kisses Shiro’s chin and his neck, their hips rubbing together—maybe he’ll give Shiro a blowjob, he thinks, shivering at the thought of Shiro’s hands in his hair, pulling, keeping him in place.

Shiro, with the hands that Keith is still thinking about, stops him.

“Shiro—” Keith mutters, and he feels himself frown, kept from doing what he’d wanted to.

“I’m—I—” Shiro stammers like he’s nervous, tripping over the words. His eyes dart over Keith’s face, down to his chest, his dick tenting the front of his soft pants, then back up again. Keith shifts his balance until he’s comfortable and tries to be patient. “I’m going to ask you something,” Shiro finally says.

“Not to stop, I hope,” Keith blurts.

“No, don’t—no,” Shiro laughs quietly and shakes his head. “Before I ask, I want you to know you can say no. I mean, I know you haven’t done this before, but if at any time you want to—then. Well. I won’t hold it against you.”

Keith’s guts squirm, curiosity and arousal and nerves, because this is going to put them on unequal terrain, experience-wise. Still, Shiro is more fidgety than he was during all Keith’s other firsts.

“What is it?” he asks, leaning in and pressing a kiss to the corner of Shiro’s mouth, ignoring the anxiety that grows with every second Shiro remains quiet.

“I, you can say no,” Shiro repeats, and Keith nods. He’s impatient now, wants Shiro to get to the point. “Can you fuck me?”

The image that conjures in Keith’s brain overwhelms him enough that he moans, pushing his head into the crook of Shiro’s neck. Even if Shiro said it without wanting Keith to act on it, it would’ve been hot—something he didn’t expect, not now, not after Shiro took him apart with his fingers and making it feel like the lead-up to Shiro fucking him instead. And maybe it was, maybe it can still be—it probably will be, given the circumstances—but right now Shiro wants Keith to fuck him, and Keith has one answer.

“Yeah,” he groans. “Yeah, I’ll fuck you, Shiro. Shit, I’m gonna fuck you so good.”

He doesn’t know where the words come from, but Shiro spreads his legs a little wider. “Where’s your lube?” he asks.

“Drawer, I’ll—” Keith mutters, kisses Shiro again and then gets up. Shiro gifted him the bottle that he got from God-knows-where some time ago, and he’s kept it hidden under a stack of underwear.

Maybe this was what Shiro had in mind back then, and Keith steadies himself on the dresser to stay upright. He takes a few deep breaths with his hand pushed against his dick as he tries to calm down, prepare himself mentally for what he’s about to do.

When he turns back, Shiro’s shucked his pants. Naked in the dim light with his dick hard and resting against his abs, Keith thinks he looks better than ever— _positively delectable_ , his mind offers, and he swallows against the dryness of his mouth.

“How do you want me to—” he starts, holding up the lube. He knows he’ll have to prep Shiro, but he doesn’t know where to begin, needs to be talked through this too.

“I can do it,” Shiro responds instead, too quick, like he thought out his answer beforehand. “I mean—I’d let you, I trust you, I just don’t trust myself not to come.”

Keith’s knees go a little weak again as he hands Shiro the bottle. He pushes down his own pants, lets his dick bob free and watches Shiro watch him, allows himself to dwell in the heat of the gaze of those brown eyes before he sits down near the end of the bed and between Shiro’s spread legs.

“Show me,” he mutters, running his free hand along the inside of Shiro’s thigh, from his groin to his knee and then keeping it there.

Shiro’s fingers shake as he pours lube onto them; they shake as he slides them over his hole, shake as he presses inside on a hitching gasp. Keith watches it all, Shiro slicking and stretching himself until he relaxes around three fingers almost buried to the hilt, his wrist twisted into an awkward angle although he hardly seems to mind as he wriggles them around, his dick leaking precome onto his stomach.

He doesn’t consciously slide his hand closer to Shiro’s groin, but once it’s there, the thought comes automatically. He reaches out, brushing his finger over the hot skin stretched around Shiro’s fingers, gently rubbing at it until Shiro’s thighs shiver and he moans breathily, letting his head fall back.

“Fuck,” Keith curses again, so hard, hard, hard, and Shiro’s fingers slide out, leaving his ass shiny and clenching down on nothing, like he needs something there—like he needs Keith.

“Here,” Shiro reaches for him and Keith takes a moment to catch up and see Shiro’s slick hand waiting for him with more lube. The substance is cold on his dick, but it warms within a few easy strokes, and when Shiro lets go of him their eyes meet.

“Are you sure?” he asks Keith, and Keith nods, moving to lean over Shiro.

“Yeah,” he mutters, “you?”

Shiro nods. The kiss comes easy, a quick gesture of comfort before Keith positions himself between Shiro’s legs. And he’s never fucked someone before, but he’s watched videos, he’s read about it, he’s _thought_ about this.

Holding his dick, he rubs the head over Shiro’s hole, testing, pressing gently, getting used to the sensation. Shiro is breathing heavily again, hitching up one leg and keeping it aloft with a hand hooked under his knee so Keith can better see what he’s doing, do it a couple more times before he starts to push in.

He tries to go slow, for Shiro’s sake and his own.

“Ahh,” Shiro gasps, letting go of his leg as he writhes against the sheets. Keith guides to let it rest over his arm and finally bottoms out, hips pressed flush against Shiro’s ass, his entire dick buried in hot, velvety heat.

“Yeah,” he responds equally breathy, trying to get his bearings. He needs to stay still for a moment if he doesn’t want to come yet, the combination of stimulation and this being _Shiro_ suddenly overwhelming. “God, you feel good, you feel—are you good?”

“So good,” Shiro confirms, a quality to his voice that Keith can’t quite place—a sharp edge that reminds him of someone about to cry, except he knows Shiro isn’t.

“Yeah,” he mutters again, “yeah. Lemme—fuck, let me fuck you. I’m gonna fuck you.” He says it more to himself, a confirmation that this is real because he can’t quite wrap his head around it yet, he’s about to fuck Shiro; he _is_ already fucking Shiro.

He wants this to last.

He begins with slow, awkward rolls of his hips, slowly settling into a rhythm. Keith is unused to this angle, to the sensation, to keeping himself steady and Shiro’s leg up—and he sees the double function now, realises that it’s less so he has a good view and more so he can press his dick all the way in on each thrust.

He speeds up gradually, only a little—enough to give Shiro the friction that lets him keen and whimper quietly, that makes his dick twitch against his stomach and leak out more precome, but not so much that Keith loses control. The rhythm then slips in too, entirely natural once he’s found it.

“I wanna kiss you,” he mutters and Shiro curls his upper body up so Keith can, can slide his tongue into Shiro’s wet mouth and kiss him deeply, the rush of blood to his ears blocking out all sounds that aren’t in his immediate vicinity, blocking out the world—or maybe that’s just Shiro always, Shiro who has that effect on Keith.

He slams in again, harder than before by accident as his hips twitch into the sensation, and Shiro moans into the kiss. He’s been louder than usual to start with tonight, but this is a sound Keith hasn’t heard before.

He wants to hear it again.

As he continues to drive his hips into Shiro, fucking him harder rather than faster, dragging the noises from his throat, wanton keening that sets Keith’s blood on fire and jolts electricity through his skin.

“Right there, fuck,” Shiro wails, pushing his hips back against Keith. He’s losing himself in the feeling, his face and chest flushed pink and his lips swollen as he bites down onto them. One moment he’s twisting his fingers into the sheets and the next he braces himself against the headboard, like he doesn’t know what to do with his body. When Keith reaches down for Shiro’s leaking dick—now a dusky purple that Keith want to put his mouth around, give his aching arousal relief—Shiro bats away his hand. “Like this,” he informs Keith between breaths. “So close, I’m _so_ —”

And Keith thinks he can see wetness in Shiro’s eyes, streaked down his cheeks, although maybe it’s sweat. The only thing he can do is to keep going, snap his hips forward over and over until he loses himself in the rhythm and all his resolve to go slow goes out of the window.

“Keith,” Shiro whimpers again, “Keith, Keith—I—,” and Keith can’t stop, can only desperately slam his hips into Shiro, “love you, fuck, I’m gonna—”. He sees a flash of despair in Shiro’s eyes before he throws his arm up over his head, his back arching up as he comes all over his stomach, moaning helplessly as he grinds against Keith.

Keith gasps as Shiro squeezes around him; he’ll come soon and in a haze he tries to pull out, because maybe that is the decent thing to do, and he kind of wants to come on Shiro’s stomach or his dick—

But Shiro’s legs wrap around his waist and keep him buried deep inside, until pleasure spills over and he can’t do anything but ride it out with shallow thrusts and fast gasps, unable to keep his eyes open as his climax consumes him.

He needs long moments to recover—minutes, maybe, his dick going soft inside Shiro before he pulls out because he doesn’t have the energy to do so any sooner. Shiro makes a discontented sound when he finally does, sticky with lube and come and seeing Shiro’s hole still shiny wet with it, puffy from Keith fucking him.

Shiro’s words still ring in his ears. _I love you_. He wants to pass it off as a spur-of-the-moment thing, the kind of shit someone says when they’re out of their mind—but even so, he feels the change within himself.

He doesn’t know how to look up at Shiro, instead rubbing his fingers over Shiro’s swollen rim to hear him moan again—because sex is easier than feelings, because it gives him an excuse, something to do and to distract Shiro with so he can hide his turmoil.

“Did you like that?” Shiro asks, his voice still shaky.

“Yeah,” Keith mutters. He can tell Shiro is looking at him and for the first time in a long time, he turns red at the attention. “It felt—it was really, _really_ good.”

“Good,” Shiro huffs out, closing his eyes. He sounds tired, so Keith gets up to grab a wet towel. “You were great.”

“Yeah?” Keith smiles. Now that he’s up on his feet, he can feel exhaustion set in as well, along with the tenderness in muscles he doesn’t typically use this way. “I’m glad to hear that.”

He could address Shiro’s words. Tease him and say, _enough to love me, huh?_ He doesn’t, though, because needs to figure out a thing or two about himself first—and so he helps Shiro with the wet towel, rubbing at his thighs and between his legs, the drying streaks running down the side of his stomach and onto the sheets.

There’s no way he’s kicking out Shiro now, though, and sleep comes easily, although that’s a matter of exhaustion and Shiro’s ever calming presence beside him.

* * *

He wakes up to an empty bed.

The meaning doesn’t sink in right away—his brain takes a few moments to kick into gear, and once it does, he wonders where Shiro went.

Shower? Breakfast? Training?

Each option sounds worse than the previous, and the light in the bathroom is off. He swallows heavily and decides it doesn’t— _shouldn’t_ —matter.

 _Just friends_ , he reminds himself.

 _Just friends_ , and then Shiro said _I love you_ and suddenly everything Keith feels for him has a name.

 _Just friends_ , because they sit opposite each other, Shiro methodically shovelling food into his mouth and barely acknowledging Keith as he enters the room. Keith pushes the gloop around his plate because he can’t stomach food now, tears burning in his eyes as he tries to keep a straight face.

He pushes himself through the motions of the day in a daze. If anyone notices, Keith can’t find it in himself to care—

 _In love_ , he thinks, his heart fluttering in his chest. _I’m in love with Shiro_. He feels like an idiot for not realising sooner; for never knowing, never figuring it out—but he’s never been this close to anybody before. He pushed it off on friendship, on Shiro being warm and comforting, on Shiro being gorgeous—

And he should have known.

Shiro avoids him, still, and Keith wonders if it has something to do with what Shiro said. He sees no other option—no other reason why Shiro might want to act this way, and Keith doesn’t know how to respond to it, so he falls back on his oldest defence mechanism.

He shuts himself down from everyone, pulling up his walls and closing his mouth.

* * *

The mood in the Castle sours over the next week.

He’s trying to figure out his feelings and he can tell the others are giving him a wide berth. While in a sense he’s grateful for it—he needs the space, he thinks, the room for his thoughts, because everything feels overwhelming; there’s no reason him being in love should upset his entire world but it has, simply because he can’t talk to Shiro.

It is Pidge who comes to him after three days. Her knocking on his door is timid, and so is her voice as she says, “If you need someone to talk to, I’m down in the tech lab.”

He needs another day before he picks her up on the offer.

He needs Lance laughing, saying, “Lover’s quarrel?” over the table before Keith walks away under the scrutiny of everybody else.

He doesn’t know if Lance is light, if only because he doesn’t know whether it can be _that_ if only he is in love.

Keith feels lonely and lost. These days, Castle appears larger than ever when he walks down its corridors. He hears Pidge tinkering away rooms away and Hunk’s voice floating over the metallic noise—for a moment, he contemplates turning around. He rethinks that when he remembers this is _Hunk_. He’s going to be kind, and compassionate—and right now, Keith might need some advice that goes beyond analytics. 

He doesn’t knock but Pidge sees him the moment he enters.

“Hey,” he mutters, and Hunk looks up as Pidge comes walking towards him, firmly wrapping her arms around Keith’s waist. Before long, Hunk joins her, and Keith is smothered by their hugs.

“Hey,” Pidge mutters into his chest. “Glad you’re here.”

“Uh, I actually don’t know why you’re here, but you did look like you needed a bigger hug—sorry Pidge—so hi. Tell me if you need me to go.” Hunk squeezes him a little harder, and Keith lets go of his breath.

“You can stay,” he says. “I just—I needed someone to talk to. Or both of you, I guess.”

“Well, I _did_ offer,” Pidge says and Hunk nods, looking at Keith intently. Something about it puts Keith at ease, the quiet patience that is nothing like his childhood psychologists who were waiting for his answers even after he refused to reply.

“I fucked up.” He doesn’t intend to say that, didn’t know he was going to—but the moment he does, it _feels_ honest enough.

“You didn’t blow up a planet, right?” Hunk says, and Keith shakes his head. “So, I’m sure this is something we can deal with.”

“I—I slept with Shiro.”

It’s not even half of the story, but at least it’s a start. Pidge already knew, of course, and Hunk looks at him like he’s waiting for more information, like this wasn’t a surprise to him either.

“I wasn’t—” he shrugs helplessly, horrible at talking about his feelings, “there was nothing to do, nothi—it was supposed to be a friends with benefits situation, I guess.”

Hunk and Pidge share a quick look and nod. “When did this start?” she asks.

“Four, maybe five months ago,” he mutters. “First just talking and then things just—kind of spiralled from there.”

“That doesn’t sound like a problem to me,” Hunk tells him. “If you were both consenting.”

Keith sighs, shrugs, because Hunk isn’t wrong, but he’s aware that _consent_ isn’t the issue here. “Just. Shiro said something when we were— _together_ —the other day, and now I think I might be in love with him.” He almost chokes on the words in his rush to get them out, and Hunk nods while Pidge pats his forearm. “I don’t know. How am I supposed to know what _love_ feels like?”

He knows he sounds frustrated, but that’s what the word does to him. He doesn’t want to be wrong, and he doesn’t know if he wants to be right.

“I think that you know what it feels like,” Pidge tells him, ever so quiet. “You should talk to him, Keith. I don’t think _he_ knows.”

“Correction, he definitely doesn’t know,” Hunk sighs, shaking his head. “I mean, I love you guys—no, _not_ like that—but you sure can be ignorant.”

Pidge snickers and Keith rolls his eyes. There’s a familiarity to the interaction which helps to calm his nerves, to quiet the constant worries on his mind.

“Even if he does know, he’ll want to hear it from you. And you should tell him, I don’t think—I don’t think he’ll be mad about it.”

Pidge is confident in her advice, and Hunk smiles at her like she’s said something fantastic.

“Yeah, okay,” Keith sighs. “I guess.” Maybe honesty _is_ best—it’ll show Shiro why Keith has been acting the way he has.

“Good luck,” Hunk tells him as he draws Keith into another tight hug.

* * *

On his way back up, he passes Shiro’s room. He turns and hesitates in front of the door, but then continues to his own quarters. Keith’s heart rabbits in his throat at the thought of speaking to _Shiro_. The feeling is disquieting, and he needs to calm down and think things over before he acts.

He skips dinner because he can’t eat anyway, instead deciding to grab a shower and getting into comfortable clothes.

When his datapad pings, he unlocks it to find Hunk’s message to say Shiro’s retired to his room. Keith knows it’s a subtle nudge (or possibly not-so-subtle) and it helps, a bit, to know that other people back him up.

He’s terrified of losing Shiro, he thinks as he makes his way into the corridor, and then he wonders if that is why Shiro panicked, why Shiro’s been avoiding him.

The door opens after a single knock. Shiro looks tired, his skin grey with worry and the circles under his eyes darker than Keith’s ever seen them.

“I think—we need to talk,” Keith states.

He can tell that Shiro doesn’t want to, but he’s never been one to back down from a challenge. And Keith knows him well enough to realise this is nothing but a challenge to Shiro—like it is to Keith, too.

“Yeah. Come on in.”

Keith can almost feel the air vibrate with tension as he follows Shiro inside.

“I didn’t think you’d leave,” he says. “After— _that_.”

“I’m sorry,” Shiro immediately says, running his hand through his hair. “I freaked out, it—I’m sorry for what I said.” He sounds frantic, and Keith forces to keep himself from cringing. “And I’m sorry for leaving.”

“Why did you?” he pushes on regardless of his discomfort. When that makes Shiro lose the last of the colour in his face, Keith finally relents. Reaches out for him, pulling Shiro over to the bed until they’re both sitting on the side, their arms almost touching. Keith tucks one leg under the other and turns to face Shiro. “I don’t—I don’t want to lose our friendship, Shiro, but I need to know.” He’s proud of how calm he sounds.

“Yeah,” Shiro sighs. “I guess you deserve to, anyway. I didn’t mean to say—I didn’t mean to say that _I love you_ , but I slipped up. And then when you were asleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about it because it felt real, and too fast. And I thought—I figured that needed some space, and that you did too.”

“I did,” Keith agrees. His mind is buzzing— _real, too fast. Real, real, real._ The words aren’t sinking just yet. “Did you think something would end up happening? Between us?”

He knows he’s looking at Shiro curiously and he feels like an asshole for not saying how he feels—but the words won’t yet come. Instead he tries of other ways to tell Shiro it’s okay, but maybe staying in place is enough for now.

Shiro smiles, slowly. “I mean—I guess plenty already happened? But falling asleep together felt like we were doing something we never discussed before. I didn’t—it just didn’t feel like that was friendly.”

Keith nods and sidles up closer to Shiro, his heart beating faster. He can feel the words now, on the tip of his tongue, on the verge of toppling over. Shiro gives him the time he needs to force them out.

“All I thought about, when I was inside you,” and his face flushes at the memory, at the rush of heat that courses through his stomach even now, “was that I wanted it to last. That I didn’t want things to change, and I guess I was an idiot because I didn’t realise what any of that meant until you said it.”

“Yeah?” Shiro mutters, and an arm wraps around Keith’s waist, even as he keeps his eyes trained on his fumbling hands.

“Yeah, I mean—I’ve never felt anything like that before. Never really been interested in _anyone_ , I guess, until now. I mean, I wasn’t a virgin because no one wanted me, I just…”

“Keith…”

“Hang on,” he says. “I need to finish talking first, I think.” He does. He won’t be able to say half these things again if Shiro cuts him off now. “I just didn’t know, and I don’t know what I’d have done if I had known sooner, but I love you too.”

“Oh,” Shiro says, and when Keith finally looks up, he looks at Keith like this isn’t what he expected at all.

“Oh?” he repeats, teasingly. “You thought I’d turn you down?”

“Love is a big word,” Shiro defends himself.

“Yeah, well.” Keith takes a moment to look at Shiro, taken in his face knowing what he knows now. He’s still gorgeous—more gorgeous than ever. The idea that he can lean in, gets to lean in, to kiss Shiro—and not have to worry about other people, and not have to worry about sneaking back to his own room, they’re new thoughts but he’s quickly realising he enjoys them. “What I feel for you is pretty big.”

He smiles, and Shiro laughs, and then he is choking on air. He doubles over as Keith pats his back, his heart rate spiking again.

“Pretty big,” Shiro wheezes. “Don’t—was that a joke?”

Keith needs a moment for the implication to sink in and then, horrified, realises what Shiro thought. “I wasn’t talking about my _boner_ , oh my god!”

“I mean—” Shiro manages between breaths, “I don’t mind, I just— _Keith_.”

“Stop it!” Keith protests again and then starts to laugh, leaning further into Shiro.

He’s acutely aware of how much he’s missed this—the ease of the physical contact, the warmth of it, the laughter bubbling up from his chest as Shiro pulls him closer, into a hug. He wraps his arms around Shiro’s waist and pushes his body into him, like he needs more—and then some _more_.

Shiro’s heat is comforting and familiar, as is the scent that lingers in his clothes and on his skin—a mix Keith can’t define but is certainly deodorant-and-something, and good enough that he wants to bury his face in it.

“You’re cute like this,” Shiro hums now that he’s caught his breath again, allowing Keith to lean close.

Keith feels his face flush, unsure of a reply although his physique produces a profound response.

“You like that?” Shiro mutters, lowering his voice as it ghosts over Keith’s skin, and he finds himself nodding. “Me complimenting you or calling you cute?”

 _Both_ , he thinks, but he doesn’t know how to say that. “Shiro,” he whispers instead, because he’s missed him and he wants to be closer, but he doesn’t exactly know on what kind of ground they stand.

Shiro’s soft lips brush his skin and Keith looks up, feels Shiro’s fingers trace lines down his jaw. “What is it?”

And Keith wants to talk—he has to define what this shifting dynamic between them is, but he knows that they’re exclusive because they’ve always been and more than that, he knows that he wants to kiss Shiro right fucking now.

But first, he presses their mouths together. He lets Shiro lay them down on the bed as he licks into his mouth and feels something heavy lift from his chest. Almost like a first kiss, they take it slow; he feels Shiro’s hands run up and down his back but never indecently low, feels his fingers on his neck and carding through his hair until he shivers into all Shiro’s touches.

“I missed you,” he then confesses, the words pouring out. “I didn’t know who to talk to, about how I felt, and I didn’t know what to do with my evenings—and I missed your hugs, I missed your _kisses_ , I missed all of you, Shiro.”

“I know, babe,” Shiro sighs, looking up at him and pushing the hair from Keith’s face, tucking it behind his ear before pulling him in for a chaste kiss. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have run. I just didn’t know how to—act, I guess.”

He kisses Shiro again because they need to make up for the lost time, and tells him, “Apology accepted.”

“Good,” Shiro smiles. “So, uh, about what you feel for me?”

“Yeah?” Keith feels Shiro’s grip tighten on his waist ever so slightly. He smiles back, pretty sure that it’s a bit dopey.

“What—how—how do you feel?”

And well. This is the moment. And he knows that with Shiro pressed up against him, in Shiro’s arms, he can safely say it. “I didn’t know because I’ve never been in love before,” and the way Shiro’s eyes widen at the admission leaves Keith lightheaded and giddy, “and I’m an idiot, because I _should_ have.”

“How so?” Shiro asks, quietly.

“All the things we did—” Keith shakes his head, laughs a little. “Like I said, I didn’t do them before because I never felt like it. With you everything felt natural, and comfortable, and I kept wanting more.” He feels Shiro’s finger hook behind his jeans’ belt loop, pulling them flush together. “I didn’t know that—comfort was such a big part of love.”

“Yeah,” Shiro nods. “It is.” He’s bright-eyed and flushed, and Keith feels more—all of it love—explode in his chest, his stomach, breath-taking and amazing.

He trails his fingers over Shiro’s face, the stubble on his jaw and the paper-thin skin under his eyes, smoothing out the skin between his brows. Shiro relaxes into it and while Keith has idly thought about doing more tonight, getting naked, he knows that is not important right now.

“Did you sleep at all the past days?” he asks.

Shiro shrugs, then answers, “A few hours here and there. Not enough.”

“We’ll talk when you wake up, okay?” Keith kisses his forehead. “Can’t have the head of Voltron keel over because he thinks his boyfriend doesn’t love him back.”

His heart hammers in his chest at the word _boyfriend_ , but Shiro only smiles when he hears it. “Good thing that his boyfriend can keep him company as they nap, then.”

Keith smiles back and settles against Shiro, closing his eyes and allowing himself to doze off.

* * *

They don’t have a grand announcement.

Instead, they show up together at breakfast the next morning and everyone falls back into the normal rhythm. Keith isn’t sure how much everyone _knows_ , but they’ve decided to discuss it only if it comes up.

It doesn’t until they’re in the lounge a couple of busy days later.

Keith’s lounging on the couch when Shiro enters, but instead of sitting down next to him, he wraps his arm around Keith’s waist and curls into him before pecking his lips.

“Hey,” he murmurs and Keith kisses back in response.

When they pull apart, there’s a quiet moment where Keith can’t take his eyes off Shiro, needs to look at him a bit longer to enjoy the pleasant flutter in his stomach. Shiro looks a bit moony, happy and better rested after a few good nights’ sleep.

He doesn’t notice Lance until he turns away from Shiro. No one else is staring, but Lance’s eyes are bulging as he gapes at them.

“What?” Keith says.

“No—nothing,” Lance shakes his head, then mutters something to himself. Keith is, somehow, reminded of the CGI gremlin from Lord of the Rings. “I just didn’t expect this.”

Across the room, Hunk snorts loudly while Pidge hides her laughter behind her hand. Allura sighs and Coran looks mostly confused, although Keith is under the impression that to Coran absolutely nothing has changed.

“No! I mean, Keith clearly has had a boner for Shiro for years,” Lance protests, and Shiro raises his brows. “But I didn’t really think they’d actually end up dating with how stuck up he can be—wait, you _are_ dating, right? You’re not pranking me?”

“We are dating, yeah,” Shiro grins. He doesn’t refute Lance’s assumption and in hindsight, Keith isn’t even sure if Lance is _wrong_ —he can definitely recall the time he spent alone dreaming about Shiro, he just didn’t have the right context for it yet.

“Okay, cool,” Lance nods. With that, he returns to his game and Shiro snickers into Keith’s ear.

“Cool,” Keith echoes. As a kid, he never thought it would be this easy—neither coming out, nor actually having a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend. Hell, he figured he’d stay alone, especially after Shiro went MIA, and he made his peace with that.

Shiro’s lips brush the shell of Keith’s ear as he whispers, “I’m going for a shower. Care to join me?”

He nods and follows Shiro as he gets up. Lance’s eyes narrow at them as he says, “You’re leaving so you can fuck, aren’t you?”

Simultaneously, they say, “Yes.” Lance looks scandalised and Keith barely holds on to his laughter until they’re out of the room.

“He’s definitely upset because he _isn’t_ getting laid,” he says, and Shiro snorts.

“Have some empathy for the boy,” Shiro teases. “He’s got a hard life.”

“Ooh—oh fuck.” Keith laughs harder and revels in it, the ease of happiness suddenly within reach. “Yeah, you’re right, I’ll be a bit kinder to him.”

“His suggestion isn’t so bad, though.” Shiro has waited until they’re in his room, dropping his voice and letting it go sultry so that it twists something hot in Keith’s stomach.

“Mmm,” Keith hums, stepping closer so Shiro can touch him, pulling off his shirt. “I agree.”

“Shower first, then—?”

Keith nods. He leaves his clothes on the floor and waits for Shiro to get naked too, halting the process because he has to reach out and touch his wide shoulders and arms, the bruise on his hip that he got when Black crashed into a meteorite during a practise run. He has to run his fingers up and down Shiro’s sides until he hits upon the tiny ticklish spot and Shiro squirms away from him, laughing as he drags Keith to the bathroom.

Shiro showers a little hotter than Keith is used to but he’ll take it if it means he run soap slick hands over Shiro’s chest and abs, wash his arms and his back and taste the sweet water intruding on their kisses as Shiro’s dick hardens against his belly.

“Mmm,” Shiro groans as he grinds up against Keith. “Feels good.”

“Yeah?” Keith is breathless, amazed at how easy it is to turn on Shiro. The now-familiar flush is extending from Shiro’s cheeks down to his chest and Keith waits until the water washes away the soap before leaning in to kiss his sternum.

He kneels for Shiro to wash his legs and takes his time, ignoring Shiro’s dick just to be a tease. Shiro doesn’t seem to mind—he’s certainly not begging for anything, but to reward his patience, Keith can’t resist leaning in and running his tongue across the swollen head just once.

“Fuck,” Shiro groans, hips pushing forward as Keith ducks aside, leaving him to thrust into the jet of the shower. “Come here, I’ll show you.”

“Show me what?” Keith jibes back.

“I’ll just— _show_ you,” Shiro restates, pouring soap into his hands and working up a lather. 

Keith closes his eyes as Shiro starts to wash him. The quiet intimacy of the moment strikes him; he didn’t think he’d ever let someone deliberately touch his armpits, much less wash them for him. And still that’s what Shiro does, slowly working his way down Keith’s torso.

When Shiro’s hands reach his ass, Keith shivers. Shiro pulls him closer and then soapy fingers slide over his hole until he’s biting back quiet moans, pushing against Shiro because even the light touch feels fantastic. He knows Shiro can’t do more than this, knows that soap is no lube—but he acutely wishes that it was.

“More,” he begs when Shiro takes his hand away. Shiro drags his thumb over his rim one last time, and he wants Shiro to slide in, to fuck him to completion like this, but Shiro shakes his head.

“Later.”

“Are you going to fuck me?” Keith pants, still shaking a little. Spreading his legs, he lets the water run over his back, feels it wash away the soap and the lingering sensation of Shiro’s touch.

Shiro looks at him for a moment, then nods. “I’ll do whatever you want me to, to be honest,” he mutters, shaking his head like he can’t quite believe it himself.

And Keith knew he had Shiro in the palm of his hand, but it’s never been this obvious before.

* * *

“Can you lay down on your stomach for me?” Shiro asks him as they get to the bed.

His hair lies flat against his forehead, starting to dry and frizz along the edges only and Keith thinks it’s adorable. In other words—he’d really rather be in a position where he can see Shiro. Shiro must pick up on it because he smiles gently.

“You can be on your back later, this is just for prep.”

“Alright, then,” Keith decides, because Shiro hasn’t let him down yet.

He buries his head in Shiro’s pillow after flopping onto the bed, settling in for Shiro’s first touch. When it comes, though, it’s not where Keith expected—instead of going for his ass, Shiro’s hands are on his shoulder blades. Not for the first time, Keith is painfully aware of how much larger Shiro is than him, his fingers reaching across the width of Keith’s entire waist as he starts to massage his back.

“Is that good?” Shiro asks, and Keith nods. He’s not sure if this constitutes as foreplay, although it should since his cock is rock hard and leaking into the sheets. Besides relaxing him, each time Shiro’s touch trails a little lower on his back he feels hot sparks of anticipatory pleasure in his stomach, like Shiro didn’t almost finger him in the shower ten minutes ago.

He hums as Shiro continues to work his muscles. His touch is attentive as always and he can feel Shiro’s dick, still mostly hard, push against his ass.

“I wanted to do this before,” Shiro confesses. “You looked so tense so much of the time—I didn’t know if this would be okay, I guess.”

“This is more than okay,” Keith mumbles. “So good, Shiro.”

“Bet you could lay here like this for hours.” Shiro teases but Keith nods anyway, because Shiro’s right. For a moment, the idea that Shiro’s done this with past partners, talked to them like this, crosses his mind, but he forcefully shoves it down. _There is no one here but me and Shiro_ , he tells himself.

Shiro intersperses his massage with kisses down Keith’s neck and spine, working his way lower and lower until finally a dry knuckle slips between his ass cheeks and brushes over his hole again.

Keith is too relaxed to stop his languid moans or the reflexive widening of his legs. Shiro puts his hands on his ass again, using his thumbs to spread his cheeks and he grinds down into the sheets, knowing that Shiro is looking at him, hot and bothered and desperate for more.

Which Shiro gives him. Just—not a finger like Keith expects.

The first touch of his tongue to his overheated sensitive skin has him pull back in shock, not expecting the soft-hot-wetness.

“Oh, _fuck_.” He twists his fingers into the sheets as he hears— _feels_ Shiro chuckle against his ass, playfully biting into the skin.

“Is this okay?”

“If you think it is?” Keith manages, gasping. He’s seen this in porn, he’s—not thought about it, not extensively, but he might have to now.

“Well, I washed you so—yeah,” Shiro mutters.

This time he stays in place, the licks initially short and sporadic until Keith settles down. Shiro’s stubble rubs against his skin, breath hot against the crack of his ass while cooling the spit-slick areas. Shiro lets Keith get used to the feeling before pressing closer, swiping the width of his tongue over Keith’s clenching rim until he’s wet with saliva and unable to keep from squirming back into the touch, desperately gasping for air with how good it feels and closer and closer to getting off on Shiro’s tongue alone. 

Shiro’s breath ghosts over Keith’s sensitive skin after he pulls back, kissing the dimples at the bottom of his spine as he whispers, “That’s enough for now, I think.”

Keith whimpers and pushes his ass back on reflex because he wants more, eager to chase immediate pleasure for a full ten seconds before he pulls himself together. He wants Shiro to fuck him, although the thought that they can do anything they want, for as long as they want, hasn’t quite sunk in yet. He’s sure that if he asks Shiro, he’ll eat Keith out until he does come some other time—the thought sends another shiver down his spine.

For now, though, the soft liquid pleasure in his stomach is replaced by a growing desperation as Shiro’s lube-slick finger rubs over his hole before pushing inside of him. The stretch is a delicious burn like it was last time and he groans into the pillow again, the sensation of Shiro’s tongue already forgotten as his body tunes in to the occasional sharp sparks of pleasure that his prostate sends down to his fingertips and toes.

When he can’t stand not seeing Shiro anymore, he looks over his shoulder to find Shiro staring down at him intently. His cheeks are flushed enough that his scar is a pale line, and all Keith wants to do is draw him in for a kiss.

The second finger is better and the third, he realises, is inevitable—strange and unfamiliar. Shiro takes his time, making sure that Keith is breathing as he gets his hole wet and comfortable with the sensation—until Keith finally manages a hoarse, “Please, Shiro.”

“Yeah, I know,” Shiro mumbles.

Once his fingers are gone, Keith feels strangely empty, strangely slick from the lube that’s smeared between his cheeks and dripping down to his balls. Shiro’s hands on his hips turn him, turning him to back. Immediately, Shiro’s heavy weight covers him. Keith’s aware of every inch—their legs, their bellies, their dicks hot and hard between them as Shiro draws him in for another deep kiss. He tastes musky and Keith flushes when he remembers _why_.

“Are you still okay?” Shiro strokes his fingers through Keith’s hair.

“Yeah.” He looks up at his boyfriend, touching his fringe and then his cheekbones, the sharp jut of his jaw. The moment’s quietude and marvel are fleeting but Keith knows there will be many more like this—because he still can’t quite fathom that Shiro has chosen to be with him, nor how he never realised that he might develop feelings for someone. That he felt so comfortable with Shiro and assumed they were still just friends with benefits.

“Yeah?” Shiro’s gaze turns darker, headier. “Still want me to fuck you?”

Keith feels Shiro rub his dick along his rim and he nods. “Yeah, God, yeah, please, _Shiro_.”

Shiro pushes in while Keith hooks a leg around his waist, willing himself to relax. He’d expected a stretch but not this kind, not this fullness that takes his breath, almost uncomfortable although he doesn’t see a reason to tell Shiro to stop. _Need to get used to it_ , he tells himself, focusing on the way Shiro’s eyes roll back in his head as he slides home.

“Good?” he asks Shiro, hoping his voice doesn’t sound too pinched. He doesn’t want to let on his discomfort, thinks he just needs Shiro to move before he’ll get into it.

“Fuck, you feel amazing,” Shiro rushes out, and Keith can see the shiver that runs through Shiro’s body. “So—hot, you’re so tight around my dick, _ohh_.” His hips push harder into Keith and Keith can’t help the grunt that escapes him, the tightening of his fingers in the sheets.

Keith wanted this to be better. He _expected_ this to be better—but Shiro is big and Keith is too tense, even as Shiro rocks into him, slowly, gently, like he’s aware that Keith is struggling. The fullness is all-encompassing, and he doesn’t know how to deal, feels like he’s on a rollercoaster that’s about to go into free-fall.

All he can do is hang on, let it happen, let Shiro take over and see where he lands.

There’s no pain, and the discomfort isn’t great enough to tap out—there are moments where he enjoys it, helplessly moaning, but other times he’s overwhelmed and overstimulated, the burn almost painful and Shiro’s dick pressing against his prostate punching out his breath.

Between focusing on filling his lungs and watching Shiro, Keith doesn’t realise what’s happening until it is.

One moment he’s hanging on and the next he feels the sudden surge of pleasure, his balls drawing up tight like he’s about to come. And when he does, his orgasm only takes the edge off, some tension leaving his body as he spills onto his stomach.

“You okay?” Shiro pants, stilling above him.

Immediately, Keith misses the friction—wants it back now it finally started to feel good, now his body is capable of relaxing after taking off the sharp edges.

“Yeah,” he nods, “yeah I just— “and he looks down at his belly, the cum splattered there and starting to drip down his sides. “I came?”

Even as he looks down and flashes a smile at Keith, Shiro picks up on the hesitation in his voice. “Do you need me to stop?”

Keith shakes his head. He’s still hard, he can feel his body eager for _more, more, more_ , more intensely so now. “I think I—I think the edge needed to be gone? You feel better inside of me now.”

Shiro frowns, leaning down to peck Keith’s lips. He doesn’t look convinced. “You can tell me if you don’t like it, okay? You don’t need to do this now, or ever.”

“I want to, though,” Keith confesses. “You just—you’re big. My body just—I think it was a bit too much?”

“You got overstimulated?” Shiro tries, and the words make sense to Keith.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, I think that’s it. Just—I want you to try. I think you feel better now, and I want you to fuck me.”

Shiro nods. He takes a few breaths, his gaze darting down to the mess on Keith’s stomach again before he reaches out, dragging his finger through it and bringing it up to his mouth. Keith watches Shiro lick his finger clean, close his eyes as he tastes it, the shiver of his hips even as Keith’s own dick twitches at the sight in front of him.

When he starts to move again, he’s slower, carefully watching the changes on Keith’s face—but he’s comfortable now. Something inside of him has given way, like a rubber band that has snapped and is gone now, giving way to pleasure at last.

Shiro changes the angle and heat rushes through Keith’s body. “Like _that_.” He can only hold on now—the situation is unreal, even as Shiro towers over him, snapping his hips forward, feeling him _move_ like this.

He’s not embarrassed even when he gets noisier, Shiro’s dick rubbing along his prostate and filling him up. Keith remembers the way Shiro had looked, sounded when he was on his back and how different this is because he’s allowed to entwine their fingers, he’s allowed to look at Shiro like he’s the world.

He’s allowed to tell him, “I love you.”

Shiro beams, sweaty and panting and grunting out, “Love you too, babe. So much.”

Shiro is close, the stutter in his hips and the pull of his mouth his familiar tells. Keith reaches down to curl his fingers around his dick, pulling at it in time with Shiro’s thrusts as pleasure builds, quick sparks that soon build into a fire that consumes him. He’s barely hanging on, riding the edge in a way he wouldn’t haven’t been able to hadn’t he come before, set on waiting out Shiro.

“I’m gonna come,” Shiro pants against his skin. “Fuck, I’m gonna—inside you, Keith, _oh_.”

He slams in one last time, grinding his hips against Keith’s ass as he hunches over him and moans helplessly. Keith tightens his grip on his dick and follows suit, the fire in his belly exploding, sending shock waves of pleasure through his entire body as he adds to the drying mess still on his stomach. He can’t tell where his body ends and where Shiro’s begins, an endless mass of sweating limbs that surrounds him, moving together, wet open-mouthed half-kisses that he loses himself, chasing Shiro’s tongue for another taste.

They come down like that, Shiro occasionally rolling his hips forward again like he can’t help himself, still wanting to be close to Keith. Keith keeps him there, sharing air with his best friend as Shiro finally settles against him, their foreheads pressed together. His breathing calms down and Shiro pulls out at last; he feels slick drip from his hole right away and winces.

“I know,” Shiro mutters, reaching down to brush his fingers over Keith’s hole. He remembers doing this to Shiro, understands the need to and now understands how good it feels as Shiro slides one finger back in. “I’ll clean you soon.”

Keith nods, squirming against Shiro’s finger. There’s no way he’s going to come again unless Shiro puts significant work into it, and the slope of his shoulders tells Keith that he’s too tired. Keith himself might be, too.

Instead he enjoys Shiro’s body covering him, running his fingertips across Shiro’s back, its ridged scars and the smooth skin in between, until Shiro groans.

“I’m gonna fall asleep if I don’t get up now,” he huffs.

“Yeah, go on and get up,” Keith smiles, kissing his cheek. “I’m sticky.”

“So am I,” Shiro complains. “Shit, I really don’t want to get up.”

Keith pushes at Shiro’s shoulders until he moves up, surprised to notice the ease at which Keith keeps him up. He smirks, knows it comes off cocky, knows that Shiro doesn’t mind.

“Go grab a washcloth or carry me to the shower,” he tells Shiro. “I don’t care which it is.”

“Washcloth, then,” Shiro shrugs. When Keith raises his eyebrows in question, he reasons, “If we shower, the bed feels gross, and then I’d have to clean the sheets too.”

“Alright,” Keith bursts out in laughter. He’s not particular with his cleanliness but he knows Shiro is. “Would you have been able to sleep all gross?”

Shiro is quiet for a moment and then tells him, “I’ll get back to you after I grab that cloth, yeah?”

Keith just laughs and shakes his head, dropping back onto the bed and waiting for Shiro to return.

* * *

The battle is hardly worth writing home about.

Keith dodges a laser beam and knocks Lance out of the way of another; finally, Hunk and Shiro make their way to the enemy ship. It’s barely a medium-size Galra command centre, keeping an unfortunate position in a backwater corner of the universe. It shows; the ship’s metal is rusting and the small ships launching themselves at Keith, Lance and Pidge are barely fighter class—clearly originally intended as transport.

Keith enjoys Red’s deft jumping from ship to ship, launching himself towards the soon-to-be-wrecks. He hears her roar in the back of his head and feels adrenalin soar through his body, not just at Red’s own antics but also her sisters’, the impact in his side when a pilot misjudges and sends their ship right into her and the soft _thump_ as Black lands on top of the ship so she can take aim of one of the central power sources.

All in all, the fight ends in a little over a varga. He’s still running high on the adrenalin rush when they land the lions on Hptira, now safe from the Galra empire.

He doesn’t think about doing it. Instead he walks over to Black, finds Shiro there, grinning and sweating in his armour, his helmet clutched under his arm.

“Hey, you did great today,” he tells Keith, pushing his fringe from his forehead.

“Yeah, you too,” Keith nods. Shiro looks great like this—he’s always thought that, but never managed to connect thought to feeling until recently, especially in situations like this. The way his stomach somersaults once is familiar though, as is the urge to lean in.

This time, he follows through. Kissing Shiro in public is odd yet easy; Shiro cups the back of his head and keeps him in place as he deepens the kiss. After a few months, the newness of kissing Shiro is gone and Keith can tell this is not foreplay, only a moment of intimacy between them after fighting.

When they pull away, the breeze is cool on his spit-slick lips and Keith smiles back at Shiro, resisting the urge to duck his head out of the way, suddenly shy as he realises what he’s done. There’s no good reason, of course, but the thrill of this new step between them hasn’t worn off yet.

“We should probably greet the planet’s welcoming committee,” Shiro tells him.

The other Paladins are waiting for them by one of Blue’s legs, looking like they were trying not to stare at Shiro and Keith indulge in each other for a moment. Some Phteri are hanging around but they don’t seem to care, and that’s when Keith feels a nudge against his hand.

Looking down, he finds Shiro’s extended his arm in an invitation. One look at Shiro’s face is enough—he’s raised his eyebrows and smiles warmly at Keith, adding, “Only if you want to.”

Keith nods and reaches down, lacing their fingers together before they join the others.


End file.
